They left the Deep Roads again, though this time there was little choice. The passage simply seemed to sever—not neatly, either, but like a broken limb with the jagged edges of bone still protruding from the flesh. Beyond the broken stone lay only a wide natural cavern, the floor a sizable drop down. Whether the passage picked up ahead at some point again was impossible to discern through the darkness. Perhaps the entire thing had caved in here, but why?
They couldn’t turn back. Going down was the only option. With the sounds of the darkspawn still approaching, Genevieve led the way by making the leap into the cavern. She landed and remained crouched for a moment, her sword held at the ready as she scanned the shadows for any sign of life. Nothing moved.
The rest of them followed immediately after. Maric landed hard on his sore leg and hissed in pain. The others ignored him, remaining still as they scanned the shadows. The only thing that the light on the mage’s staff revealed around them was great chunks of rubble.
There was also the acrid smell of brimstone. Maric found it almost overpowering. Was there some kind of natural spring nearby?
“What is that?” Duncan complained.
“Quiet!” Genevieve snapped. Her sword remained out, her eyes at once so wary and so exhausted that they looked positively murderous. She obviously was convinced they were not alone. Duncan’s jaw closed with an audible click.
Her caution was infectious, and while they moved forward into the unknown darkness of the cavern, they did so only slowly. Fiona held up her staff and made it shine brightly enough to show where they were more clearly. This was definitely some kind of natural fissure, and they could see the jutting bones of other passages up above at several junctures. This great cavern lay between the Deep Roads, or around it. It was difficult to tell.
The sound of something odd crunching under his boot heel caught Maric’s attention. He looked down, and noticed bones.
The others saw them just as he did. Fiona breathlessly lifted her staff up again, and it illuminated many piles of bones. Not human bones, Maric was relieved to see. Nor darkspawn bones, either. These were animal bones, most of them old and covered in dust.
There was a pack animal called a bronto that roamed the Deep Roads, formerly tame beasts that the dwarven Shapers had engineered long ago and that had gone wild when the darkspawn had destroyed the dwarven kingdoms during the First Blight. Maric had never seen one himself, but there were supposed to be herds of them still roaming underground. These were bronto bones, he suspected. Piles and piles of them. A whole cavern so full that it blanketed the stone.
“Is this some kind of graveyard?” Fiona asked, her voice small.
Kell shook his head. He crouched down and picked up one of the larger fragments. The fact that it was jaggedly split was obvious. Something had torn it apart. Many of the bones had suffered similarly. Without comment he tossed the piece aside and nocked an arrow on his bow. His pale eyes looked around intently.
They were all quiet, waiting.
“Do you hear that?” Duncan finally asked.
Each of them cocked their head, listening. There were only silence and shadows. It had also grown warm, Maric found. He had assumed that the warmth he felt was a result of all the running and sweating, but now that they were still and he was calmer, he realized it was something else. Mixed with the sulfurous stench was a dry heat wafting in the air.
“I don’t hear anything,” Genevieve growled.
“Exactly! Where are the darkspawn? I can barely sense them!”
The Commander seemed stunned not to have realized it herself. They stood for a long minute, doing nothing, before she finally waved them to proceed. “We need to find a way through. Whatever reason the darkspawn aren’t following us, perhaps we can use it to our advantage.”
The rest of them appeared reluctant but said nothing. They followed her quietly, picking their way through the field of bones as the cavern slowly opened up into something even larger. There was light here, too. It was dim at first, the faintest glow of lichen clinging to the walls, but eventually it increased to the point where Fiona’s staff wasn’t even needed. Maric was reminded of the great caverns that the thaigs were built within, but here there were stalactites and stalagmites instead of dwarven buildings. There were fissures pumping out steam, and he thought he saw faint streams of lava behind large rocky outcroppings. Their orange glow added to the dread ambience.
There were also more of the bones littering the entire chamber. Many of them were blackened, jumbled atop piles of dark ash. Several of the fissures sent clouds of steam pumping up along the rocky walls. The smell of brimstone became almost overpowering.
Kell’s hound began to growl fearfully, its hackles raised.
Genevieve stared into the distance, trying to peer past the faint haze of the steam as if she could command what ever secret this place held to reveal itself. Nothing came. Without looking at the others, she waved them forward. “Look for a way through.”
As they began to spread out, however, Kell suddenly hissed, “Stop!”
Genevieve turned back, annoyance clear on her face—which instantly turned into alarm. The hunter stared upward, his eyes wide and stark with fear. She followed his gaze at the same time as Maric did, as they all did, and they saw what it was that had kept the darkspawn from pursuing them. Something descended down upon them from above, something large. Something with great, leathery wings.
“Dragon,” Kell breathed.
8
“Wardens!”
Genevieve’s shout of warning was unnecessary, and came too late as the black-scaled high dragon crashed down onto the ground amid them with cataclysmic force. It roared as it did so, a blast of sound so furious that Duncan covered his ears. He screamed, the pain unbearable, but he couldn’t even hear himself. The ground shook under his feet from the force of the dragon’s impact, and a rush of air from the dragon’s wings beating hard sent him flying off his feet.
The world spun around him as he tumbled and skidded along the ground, until finally he slammed into a column of black rock. Agony blazed through his back. Gritting his teeth, Duncan forced himself to get back to his feet. A wave of dizziness swam over him, but he managed to keep his bearings.
The others had been scattered the same as he had, though the ones in heavy armor had not traveled quite as far. Already the high dragon was spinning around with surprising agility to attack them. It stomped down onto Julien with a taloned foot, pinning him before he could rise, and turned its sinewy neck to glare directly at Genevieve with a head that was twice as large as the woman herself.
She did not retreat, standing resolute with her sword poised before her, eyes warily locked onto the dragon’s. The creature snorted black smoke angrily, as if it was enraged by the presence of these intruders in its lair. It breathed through its huge fangs, each yellowed tooth as long as an arm, as it stalked carefully around Genevieve. She kept her sword ready and faced the dragon, her face grim determination.
The dragon stepped off Julien, and the man groaned in pain. Nicolas darted in, quickly dragging the man away to a rocky ridge nearby. There was too much dust and dirt stirred up by the dragon still clouding the air to see much of anyone else.