—he started awake, sitting up far too fast. The pounding in his head became excruciating agony. He winced, pressing his hands to the sides of his head as if that might prevent his brain from exploding. That’s certainly what it felt like was going to happen, anyhow. That’s also when he noticed there were heavy iron manacles on his wrists.
“What the blasted … ,” he muttered.
“Not so fast,” the voice cautioned him. “We’re all wounded.”
Still pressing on his head, Duncan opened his eyes slowly. There was light in the small chamber, a harsh orange glow emanating from a strange amulet that hung near the door. It was enough to make his head throb, and he looked away into the shadows.
The voice was correct about one thing: He was bandaged. He could feel the thick bandages around his chest, all stuffed with some kind of material that felt warm and itchy at the same time. There were other strips of cloth wrapped around one shoulder and his left thigh, injuries he didn’t even remember receiving even though they pulsated painfully enough now. The cloth used for the bandages looked yellowed and suspect. Best not to examine them too closely.
“How are you feeling?”
The concerned voice was Fiona’s. He blinked several times, getting used to the amulet’s glow, and saw her sitting next to him. The elf looked quite a fright, her hair matted with dried ichor and her chain shirt not only splattered but possessing several gaping holes. Her skirts were tattered and filthy. She, too, was manacled as he was, their restraints connected by rusty chains to a stone wall behind them.
The others looked no better. He could make out Kell in the dim light, one of his legs heavily bandaged and little left of his leather jerkin other than a tattered vest. Yellowed cloths covered much of his upper chest, dark stains seeping through in two spots. Hafter slept next to him, the hunter stroking the hound’s head absently. The dog was unbandaged, but his fur was covered by enough wet, reddish areas that he was likely wounded as well.
Utha sat beside him with her arms around her knees. She had several cuts on her face, and her brown robes were almost black with blood and soot. The dwarf didn’t look pleased, he thought, and she grimly examined her manacles as if she could find some way to break them open just with the intensity of her gaze.
King Maric was lying on the floor on the other side of Duncan. He was still unconscious, his head covered with a thick bandage soaked through by an alarming amount of blood. His silverite armor was dull and black, and covered in so many splatters of ichor and blood, he couldn’t really tell if the man was injured anywhere else.
They were in a cell. A single, long chamber with stone walls and chains attached to the wall with solid-looking pitons. The amount of corruption covering the wall was extensive, tendrils spidering out in every direction, and he was glad the deep shadows hid most of it. The air was musty, heavy with the smell of blood and layered with an insidious foulness that crept inside him every time he breathed.
“Duncan, how are you feeling?” Fiona repeated. “You look confused.”
“I am,” he muttered. “How did we get here?”
“I don’t know.” She looked around the cell, her gaze lingering on the stone door. “We can’t reach the door to test if it’s locked, and with my hands bound I can’t cast.”
“You can’t cast at all?”
“Nothing that would help us out of here.” Her eyes flicked to Maric beside him, her face filling with anxious concern. “Can you please check Maric? He hasn’t stirred, and I can’t reach him.”
Duncan turned toward the man, lugging his manacles closer—they were heavy—and pressed his fingers to his neck. There was definitely a pulse, weak as it was. “He’s alive.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Kell glanced at both of them, frowning. “The song is very loud here, is it not?” he said.
“What song?” Duncan asked. He didn’t hear anything at all; the cell was completely silent save for their breathing. He could sense the presence of darkspawn all around them, a whole sea of them almost right outside the door. Was there no end to these creatures?
Fiona looked at him archly. “You really don’t hear it?”
“Hear what? There’s no song.”
She glanced at Kell. “I hear it very faintly, like something off in the distance. I thought maybe it was the darkspawn, but now I’m not so sure.”
“It’s the Calling,” he said solemnly. Fiona stared at him, stunned, and Duncan felt the same way. The Calling? There’s no way Fiona should be hearing that already, surely! Utha made several gestures at the hunter and he nodded. “I don’t think it’s just because we’re down here, either. Something is happening to us.” He indicated the spreading corruption over the visible parts of his chest and arms. There was a lot of it. If Duncan had seen the man walking down some street, he would have expected children to be throwing stones at him and calling him a leper, if not worse.
Horror dawned on Fiona’s face. She raised her manacles and let one of her chain sleeves fall to reveal her bare arm. It was covered in several long scratches, and bloodied, but the corruption was clearly visible. It wasn’t as extensive as Kell’s, but it was there.
“I checked not even a day ago! This wasn’t like that!”
“We are corrupting from within,” Kell agreed. “Far more quickly than we should be.” Utha beside him merely nodded grimly, turning back to stare at her manacles.
Duncan twisted himself around to try to look at what bare skin of his own he could. There wasn’t much. Some of the leather straps covering his arms had come loose, but not enough for the armor to peel away, and while his trousers were ripped, the bit of skin underneath was too covered in dried blood for him to tell anything. His hands, however, were clear. “I don’t see anything,” he announced nervously. “And I don’t hear anything, either.”
Fiona shrugged. “You were the last of us to take the Joining.”
That wasn’t exactly reassuring. His Joining had been only months behind Fiona’s, while hers had been many years behind Kell’s and Utha’s.
“So this is where darkspawn keep their prisoners, huh?” he asked, hoping to change the subject. “Do they have executioners? Are they going to come and question us?”
Utha made a rude gesture and Kell frowned at her. “He doesn’t know,” he gently reprimanded her. Looking back at Duncan, he answered. “They don’t keep prisoners. The Grey Wardens know that the darkspawn are capable of simple industry, but they don’t seem to care about questioning us or finding our plans. They aren’t the most subtle creatures.”
“Hate to contradict you, but we sure look like prisoners.”
“I know.” His pale eyes narrowed as he considered the matter, troubled. “I had hoped Genevieve might be here,” he muttered.
Time passed slowly. Their weapons had been stripped from them, as had their packs, so there was nothing to eat and the store of healing poultices that Fiona had brought were now uselessly in darkspawn hands. Occasionally strange sounds would come from far off, loud ringing noises as if something was pounding against metal, and then a great groaning. They heard the darkspawn, too, hissing and moving about. It was faint, but they were definitely out there and leaving them alone, for what ever reason.
Maric stirred, in time. He groaned at first, and at Fiona’s urging Duncan checked his bandages and ascertained that what ever muck was underneath them seemed to be working. The man’s bleeding had stopped. Duncan gently shook his shoulder until he opened his eyes.
It took a minute of blinking before he finally turned his head and looked directly at Duncan. His eyes looked a bit unfocused, and he seemed confused. “Cailan?” he groaned.
Duncan chuckled. “Unless your son looks nothing like you, no.”
More blinking. “Duncan?”
“There you go.”