Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights

by Patrick Weekes

  At the base of the mountain’s slope, broken weapons, of both Warden and darkspawn make, littered the ground. Trampled tents and broken equipment told the rest of the story, as did the blood that covered everything. There’d been a fight here. A big one.

  But not a single Warden body. Darkspawn corpses, dozens of them. But no evidence that any of Jovis’s party had been slain. Yet the sheer amount of blood, splashed everywhere, suggested something grimmer. Darkspawn ichor was easily distinguishable, even after it had dried, but this was something different. Which meant that it had come from the missing party. Where were they, then?

  Beside him, Lesha’s staff was in her hands—magical energy thrumming, ready to be loosed. Ramesh had his own daggers out, an involuntary reaction to the scene before him, and realized his own hands were sore from how tightly he was gripping the hilts.

  He took a deep breath and let it out. Once, twice, three times, forcing calm. Yes, things looked grim—there was in fact quite a lot of blood, and that rarely spoke to anything good. But there were no bones, which would have been left if the remains had indeed been eaten. There was still a chance that Jovis and his Wardens were alive. He turned to his companion, making a show of sheathing his daggers.

  “We should split up. Figure out what exactly happened here. Look for anything that seems … well, relevant.” He shook his head, then added, “Looks grim, I know. But no bodies. That tells me they could be still alive. And that means we’re going after them. But let’s make sure there’s a ‘them’ to go after.” Lesha, nodded, her expression stoic, and moved deeper into the camp.

  He walked through the center of the carnage, looking for a sign—for something to hold on to.

  “Dammit, Jovis,” he whispered. Despite his reassuring words to Lesha, he feared the worst. That there were no bodies meant very little, as she knew—perhaps they’d been captured, or any number of a hundred other things that meant they were dead and that this whole adventure was pointless.

  Still he searched. There were no campfires, no signs of cots or bedrolls. This was meant to be fortifications, then, not a camp. There were some provisions, but no more than would last a single day. They’d expected a fight, and clearly gotten one. That they’d been overwhelmed seemed obvious—the number of darkspawn corpses was enormous. And not just hurlocks, but genlocks, shrieks, even a couple of emissaries.

  But there was something different about these darkspawn. The mutations that gave rise to their mindless hordes were far from consistent. Yet here he saw variance unlike any he’d previously known. Hurlocks with extra arms, shrieks with the powerful legs of a genlock, and an emissary with a second head. Something strange—normally, he would have written it off as merely being another aspect of the darkspawn physiology that was inexplicable, but combined with everything else, it was disturbing.

  “Here! Over here!” Lesha’s voice rang across the clearing, carrying a note of excitement. Ramesh ran over to find her standing in front of a large hole in the earth. Peering inside, he saw stairs leading down. Bloody boot prints—not of darkspawn, but of men. Jovis and his Wardens. The flame of hope flickered once again in Ramesh’s heart.

  The smell of brine was stronger here—more potent—than anywhere else in the clearing, and it seemed to be coming from below. Beside him, Lesha muttered a word and her staff began to glow. She pushed it inside the entrance to the hole, giving light to the darkness within.

  The edges of the circle cast by Lesha’s spell revealed a small staircase that descended into an antechamber slightly larger than the clearing above, carved with a skill and delicacy that rivaled the works of Orzammar, or even Kal-Sharok. At the other end of the chamber, a doorway and a second staircase beyond that which spiraled into the darkness, the entire space lit by the glow of lyrium. And above the entrance, written in dwarven runes, a single word—Hormok.

  * * *

  They descended the spiral staircase. The minutes stretched on as they went farther and farther into the darkness, and the smell of seawater grew even stronger. Finally, the staircase reached its end, and another door—larger, grander than before—sat open. They walked through, Lesha holding her magical light in front of them.

  The door opened into an enormous chamber, fallen into ruin, yet still no less grand for its current decay. It brought to Ramesh’s mind the other dwarven thaigs, but none of those he’d seen were in as dire shape as this one. It made sense. The fall of Hormok had come centuries before, consumed by the darkspawn. Yet it was oddly, unexpectedly, quiet.

  Around the chamber, the old mixed with the new, the latter being the small tents and bedrolls, as well as other signs of recent habitation. There was blood, though less of it than above, and the utter destruction was lacking. Whatever had happened here had been smaller, the battle less pitched.

  Rusted shovels and picks leaned against the wall in neat rows. Skeletons, several of which had fallen to dust, wore the remains of dwarven armor. The remains of a mining party, or a Deep Roads expedition, then, long dead. But the hall bore more recent signs of Jovis’s Wardens—guard fires had been lit at either end of the chamber.

  He poked at the ashes of one—beneath them, a few embers still smoldered. He threw a few branches on, blew on them until the fire was flickering once again. Preserved foods, stored in jars, sat in neat piles next to the fires, along with several baskets full of bread and smoked meat. He reached down and picked up a loaf. The bread was hard but showed no signs of mold. So, the camp had been abandoned—recently, but not too recently.

  The only entrance seemed to be the door through which they’d come. Every other doorway was choked with debris, the largest opening wide enough to admit a mouse, nothing larger. Unless they’d doubled back, returned up above, there seemed no place for the Wardens to have gone.

  Something drew his eye—a half dozen or so small drums, bearing an unknown dwarven mark, were piled at a comfortable distance from the fires. They seemed old—perhaps as old as the dwarves—but they were in remarkably good condition. Lesha was kneeling in front of them. She looked up at Ramesh’s approach, and he raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Lyrium charges. The dwarves use them to remove obstacles, open up passages. I’ve seen them before, though none of this make.” She stood up, absentmindedly wiping her hands on her robe. “Unfortunately, they’re mostly useless without the fuse, unless you’re happy to blow yourself up with them.”

  “I’ve heard of them. Never seen them.”

  “Not many surfacers have. They used them to open up some of the old tunnels under Minrathous.” She stood up and gave him a faint smile. “Makes a big boom.”

  “Why here, though?” Ramesh asked, frowning. “There’s a reason we don’t come to this part of the Deep Roads much. Whole place is unstable—Darkspawn really did a number on it.”

  “Don’t know. Mining expeditions take them along, just in case. Passage collapses, something’s blocking your way. Lot easier than chipping through with a pickax. Must be careful, though.” She looked around uneasily. “Like you said—place like this, not properly shored up? Who knows what you’ll get.”

  “That sounds a little bit … dangerous?”

  “Certainly. I understand it’s fairly common among the dwarves, though.” She hesitated, then added, “Good for sealing things up. Just in case you want to make sure someone—or, well, something—doesn’t get out.”

  She glanced around the room, looking for something—the missing fuses, maybe, or a further clue to Jovis’s whereabouts. Her eyes widened.

  “Look!” Grabbing Ramesh’s arm, she pointed forward into the darkness, toward one of the massive stone pillars.

  “Right there. Looks like markings of some sort—fresh, too. See? No dust.”

  Sure enough, several marks had been scratched into the pillar. And—he looked at the next pillar—there, too. And then to the left. The same set of three marks had been sloppily scratched into each pillar. Whoever had done so had been in a hurry. Beside him, Lesha shifted uneasily.<
br />
  “Looks like dwarven mining sign. Tells you who’s been this way, when they’re coming back. But I don’t recognize the marks themselves,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t. They are the marks of a Warden—well, some Wardens, I mean. Senior ones. Ferelden, specifically. Great way to keep from being abandoned in the Deep Roads. Look.” He pointed to the closest pillar. “See this? Three marks. The first is a date—looks like three days ago. That’s when you leave. The second’s how many of you there are. Six marks means six Wardens. And the third—” He fell silent. Beside him, Lesha gave him an inquisitive look.

  “What does the third mean?”

  Ramesh shook his head, and there was no mistaking the grief in his voice. “That’s when you expect to be back. Means that if you miss that day, they’re supposed to send a search party.”

  On his other side, Lesha reached out a gloved hand and traced the mark. “So, when did they plan to come back?”

  “That’s the thing. They didn’t plan to come back. This is a warning. They don’t want us coming after them.”

  Silence filled the cavern, then, somehow more oppressive than before. The flicker of hope that Ramesh had felt was gone, buried under despair and a growing sense of unease, of fear. Finally, Lesha broke the quiet, her own voice tinged with a hint of terror.

  “But we’re still going after them, right? We’re Wardens—that’s what we do. We’re not just going to—” Ramesh raised a hand, cutting off the argument.

  “Don’t need to convince me. I’m with you. Leave no one behind, right? There’s the right thing to do and the wrong thing. Personally, I’m about the right thing.” He shook his head, then added quietly, “Remember the oath. We’re going down there, and…” Something itched in the back of his mind, and it took a moment for him to realize what. Darkspawn. He drew both daggers in a single practiced motion. “Company.”

  They came from the darkness. Nine darkspawn, genlocks and hurlocks both, and led by an emissary. Yet where their entrance would normally be marked by gibbering and jabbering, these were eerily silent.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Lesha asked. It took Ramesh a moment to realize what she meant—they were changed. Different. One hurlock had the tail of a scorpion—another, a genlock, but with a longer, thinner skull, more avian. And then there was no more time for words.

  They attacked as one, charging forward. A blast of fire from Lesha’s staff caught the closest genlock full-on in its all-too-human face, sending it flying backward, its head a charred ruin.

  Another genlock came at Lesha, its head narrower, thinner, jaw elongated. She threw herself into a slide, raising her staff in a two-handed defensive posture. The creature’s jaw struck the hilt, its momentum shifting, and it went flying past her before it struck the wall with a sickening crunch.

  The mass of darkspawn spread out, moving to separate and isolate the two Wardens, with a level of cunning and guile unusual for their kind. Three hurlocks and the emissary moved toward Ramesh, weapons out.

  With a speed and flexibility that belied his years, he ducked under the swing of a brutal sword. A fist followed the sword but where Ramesh expected the fist to be there was instead a serpent’s head. It snapped at him, missing by inches, venom dripping from its fangs. His momentum carried him under the blow and he rose, swinging both daggers at once and taking the hurlock’s head right off its shoulders, ichor spurting from the wound.

  Another hurlock blade scythed in from the left. He caught the sword on his daggers, turning the weapon away and rolling. A blast of green energy flew over his head and burned a hole through the center of the creature.

  The last two hurlocks moved toward Ramesh, weapons drawn. He feinted toward the creature on the left. It took the bait and recoiled, while the rightmost hurlock lunged forward. He’d been waiting for that and caught its blade on the hilt of his dagger before shifting his grip and driving one weapon through the hurlock’s chest. It slumped forward.

  Fire drew a burning line down his left side as the other creature’s blade caught the edge of his armor, drawing blood but nothing more. It swung again, and Ramesh parried the blow, smashing his armored fist into its face, sending it reeling in a shower of broken teeth.

  He caught the barest flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and threw himself to the ground. A blast of fire moved through the space where his head had been only moments before. Ramesh rolled to his feet and turned to face the emissary.

  It rose above the ground, massive batlike wings giving it an agility uncommon to its kind.

  Keeping out of reach of Ramesh’s daggers, it fired magic blasts at him as they circled, and dove at his head, swinging its long sword, using its longer reach to its advantage. Ramesh dodged, once, twice, but the exertion was beginning to wear on him.

  Suddenly he stumbled, and the emissary, its screech of victory the only noise it had made, lunged forward. But Ramesh’s mistake had been a ruse. He ducked under the blow, letting the creature’s momentum carry it right onto his two daggers. It impaled itself on his weapons and slumped, dead, before sliding to the ground.

  There was silence. The other darkspawn were dead, dealt with by Lesha. She was sitting on a rock beside him, gingerly wrapping a bandage around her torso. She saw Ramesh’s look of concern and shook her head.

  “Got a little cocky. Thought I had the first one off-balance. I misjudged and it got a piece of me. Oh, and it had a scorpion tail. Didn’t seem to have any venom in it, though. Lucky break.” She gingerly touched the wound and winced. “Looks worse than it is.” She looked at Ramesh. “Why did it have a scorpion tail? And why did that emissary have wings?”

  He could only shrug. “I don’t know. Never seen anything like that. This is something new.”

  Lesha sighed, stood up. “Unless they came from the surface, I can’t think of how they got in. There must be another exit—one we didn’t see.”

  She paused, deep in thought. Ramesh was carefully silent.

  Her eyes brightened. “Of course. The Warden signs.” She limped to the nearest pillar. “See? First one. And then it continues.” She ran to the second pillar, then the third. “It’s a path. They marked each pillar as they hit it.” Ramesh heaved himself to his feet and followed after her.

  The markings continued for several hundred more meters before abruptly ending, the last pillar half buried in the wall. But something was strange, different. Ramesh was the first to vocalize it.

  “Notice this? Only place in this whole damned room that the floor is clear.”

  The debris and refuse that covered the ground nearly everywhere else in the chamber was completely gone in front of that one section of wall. Ramesh shook his head. “A secret door. I’ll be damned.” He frowned. “But how does it open?”

  Lesha shrugged. “I imagine it opens the same way as any other door.” She pointed at the bottom of the section of wall. There, almost imperceptible, were a series of grooves. Handholds, barely visible.

  Ramesh gave Lesha an approving glance and she smiled faintly, some of her usual bravado restored. “Let’s see where it goes,” Ramesh said.

  * * *

  The shrill screech of stone grinding on stone filled the room as Ramesh hooked his fingers into the grooves on the giant slab and heaved upward with all of his might. It resisted, and then slowly moved, sliding within the rock above into some hidden alcove. With a grunt of effort, Lesha rolled a large boulder forward and under the door.

  “All right. Back up.” She did, and he released the door. He leaped backward, safely out from under the door’s massive weight. It started to slide back down, before encountering the resistance of the boulder. There was a moment of uncertainty, where the doorway gouged a small groove into the top of the stone, but finally it stopped, braced open.

  Warm air trickled out of the passageway—the stench of brine and decay now overpowering. Several steps in, the passageway sloped downward and seemed to curve gently inward, forming a spiral ramp that led ever deeper into the
darkness. Ramesh took a deep breath, the air stinging his lungs. Beside him, the wood of Lesha’s staff creaked as she tightened her grip until her knuckles were white.

  “I assume this is where Jovis and his team went. Makes sense to go this way. No time like the present, right?” The confidence in her words was absent in her tone. Ramesh nodded, though his every instinct warned him against venturing down the fetid passage.

  “Anyone’s still alive, they’ll be this way. Count out eight hours. If we don’t find them by then, we come back. All right?” Ramesh said, noting the strain in his own voice. Lesha nodded.

  Taking deep breaths, like swimmers about to plunge into a frozen lake, they started down the winding passageway, deeper into the darkness, deeper into the bowels of the earth.

  They continued in silence for what seemed like hours, neither wanting to give voice to their fears. And soon, the lack of conversation felt like a necessity. The idea of their words echoing down the seemingly endless tunnel and awakening something gnawed at them.

  The slope of the ground started to abate, then, and the walls began to take on a more sculpted appearance. Blank rock gave way to carvings—mostly too worn and damaged to make out. Lesha paused in front of one image that had largely survived. It was a simple painting of three figures—a supplicant, a priestess, and a monster. Lesha was the first to break the silence.

  “This reminds me of something. What, exactly…” She shook her head. “Almost like Avvar cave paintings. But dwarven, maybe?” Ramesh leaned in and squinted.

  “They look more elven to me. ’Least the people in the picture do, I mean.”

  “It’s not about the people. Look, every culture has their own artistic signature—something that makes it theirs. Tevinter is all about sharp angles. Ferelden is hard and brutish, and Orlais is delicate and opulent. Dwarves are … well, simple is the wrong word, but they get right to the truth.”

  “If it’s dwarven, what’s it say?”