Fifty Shades of Grey Wardens

Fire and Darkspawn

Five weeks of marching along a dirt road had dulled the wicked edge of pain for the Denerim guard regiment. The Blight and the Archdemon all felt a long time ago, a different life. The novelty of escorting the deceased remains of Ferelden's greatest hero had been quickly lost to the men, too, in the very first week. Armour became dirtied with the dust of the road, the forest of spears had become slightly lopsided as though in a strong gale, and tightly formed ranks broke up into smaller clusters of fellows and drinking companions. The complaining set in soon after, and before long every man was whining of some ache or sore, some seeming even to have forgotten went they were out here at all. The longest forced march they had ever had to endure was the two day march from Redcliffe to Denerim, and then their spirits had been well fuelled furnaces, furious at the monsters who had invaded their country and slaughtered their people, eager for revenge. In comparison, this seemed a little... pointless.

It appeared as though Alistair was the only one still taking this seriously, marching on in morbid silence day after day. His mind would not turn from the pain that had swamped into his mind that day, smothering all else in a tidal wave of horror. However, just recently- no more than a day or two in fact- something had gnawing at the back of his mind, a half shrouded knowledge that all was not well. The group were in Orlais now, and making fairly good time (despite the disapproving complaints that this brought). Somewhere between Velun and Val Foret, if they kept up the same pace throughout they could reach the next settlement within two days.

It was strange, Alistair contemplated with the small corner of his mind which still complied when he asked it to think. This was Orlais, the almost undisputed most powerful country in Thedas, thriving and pulsing with life; and yet ever since leaving Verchiel- where they had been treated with suspicion at first, but had eventually managed to trade for some supplies when they had flashed Ferelden sovereigns- the group had not come across a single person. The only thing they had found was a single, lonely farmhouse, abandoned, and in what looked like a hurry, with tools and the like abandoned upon the ground. As though the people who had been using them had abruptly fled...

Perhaps if his brain hadn't been so focused on being depressed, so inward facing, perhaps then he would have noticed. As he moped silently at the head of the ragged column, his charge safely in the centre in the horse-drawn cart, the Grey Warden felt once more that flicker of unease, that sense of wrongness, of... darkness. His lips had time only to mouth a silent 'Maker', and then...

Blood.

Most of the men were dead before they had time to scream, but for those who did, it was a long anguished wail of sheer agony that cut into Alistair's ears like the jagged blades that sliced and sawed at their flesh. Shrieks and Hurlocks and Genlocks threw themselves in a gory frenzy against the regiment, swords and knives and axes hacking and slashing, turning an escort into a bloody massacre in a matter of instants.

This couldn't... They couldn't... How... The Blight... Even as the young Templar's mind fumbled for explanations, struggling desperately to apply some sort of logic to the situation into which he had been catapulted, he could feel his body responding, guided by the instincts he had honed like a sword every day for the best part of his life.

The hefty longsword he wielded flashed in a dangerous arc, drawing darkspawn blood before the rectangular shield had even cleared his back, the griffin insignia inscribed upon its hilt flickering in the light. An Alpha Hurlock delivered what should have been a devastating blow, but Alistair had been fighting darkspawn for more than a year now, and the creature's attacks were wild and imprecise. The deformed blade rang off the curved shield in a spray of sparks, and moments later the offending Hurlock staggered clumsily backwards, its severed neck a fountain of garish cerise.