There and Back Again Ch. 121-122

I found Alistair talking to Trevian and Fargrim. He turned to me as I approached and forced a smile, eyes tight with stress. "You ready?"

I nodded and leaned in to him briefly, trying to absorb some confidence, before turning away and resolutely walking up to the barrier.

"Where do you think you're going?" Trevian asked, but I ignored him and took a deep breath, making eye contact one last time with Alistair before ducking through the small gap remaining. I heard an exclamation from behind me in dwarvish, and assumed the Legion commander was swearing; Alistair was answering him, so I put it out of my mind and looked forward instead of back.

The hallway leading into the room we'd fought in continued to lead deeper underground, but to my relief stayed quite wide as far as I could see before curving out of sight. One side of the rough-hewn corridor had darkspawn standing against it at intervals, most of them watching the barricade; I wondered if I was imagining the hungry expressions on their ruined faces. Some of them waited listlessly, while others appeared to be attempting to sharpen weapons or repair their rough armour; all of them ignored me entirely.

I wonder what they're waiting for?

I edged along the opposite side of the hall, stepping carefully to avoid drawing attention to myself, but it was probably unnecessary. The darkspawn shifted and grunted, the sounds echoing down the hall, and I doubted they'd have heard me if I had fallen, never mind the quiet whisper of a kicked pebble.I'm still not taking any chances. I wondered if the hoots and other vocalizations constituted communication, or if they were just random noise.

I counted twenty-five darkspawn in the corridor visible from the barricade, and slowly crept around the corner to the area previously hidden from sight. There were more darkspawn there, still largely waiting around aimlessly, in a much larger chamber than I'd seen up to that point. The creatures seemed to segregate themselves somewhat by race, to my grim amusement, and a number of hurlocks bunched together staring suspiciously at a slightly larger group of genlocks. A flicker of movement in a back corner informed me there were probably a couple of shrieks hiding there, and the opposite corner even held a massive ogre, currently crouched down on its haunches, disconsolately picking at its massive, pointy teeth with a clawed fingernail.

It was enormous from this close, and a stench, worse than the rest of the Deep Roads, emanated from where it stood. It was wearing scavenged bits of armour almost at random; it had a massive sheet of studded metal wrapped around one forearm, and I wondered, as I stared at it, if it had once been a leg plate from a set of plate armour. It had a leather belt around its waist, another strip of leather wrapped around one shoulder like a bandolier, and some bits of metal wrapped around its powerful bicep and calves. As with most darkspawn, it wore a tattered wrap of cloth around its middle, hiding whatever passed for private parts from view, for which I was grateful.

It took me a moment to note that, beside the ogre, there was a hurlock, and they appeared to be actually talking. I blinked and looked again. The hurlock wore a sheet of chain links over his head like a hood, a thick leather cloak around his shoulders, and a set of apparently well-made chainmail covered the rest of him. His voice was guttural, as he spoke to the enormous ogre, but I couldn't mistake that the words were in English.Common.

"...the Father demanded. Be leaving the tainted ones to us. We will be sending the signal, and then, destroy all. Yes?"

The ogre grunted, and to my horror, nodded like a person would, before turning away and reaching a lazy hand into a pile of refuse behind him, pulling out a lump of flesh – darkspawn, by the blackened corruption – and beginning to chew on it noisily.At least it didn't speak. I wasn't sure I wouldn't have run away screaming in horror if it turned out the ogre was one of the Architect's 'Disciples'.Hopefully even that psychopath sees the problem with 'liberating' ogres.The hurlock, who I'd realised must have been 'the Withered' from the start of Awakenings, turned away with a look that would have been disgust if a person had worn it, and walked toward the clump of hurlocks I'd seen earlier, growling something unintelligible.

Startled from my horrified fascination with the talking darkspawn, I went the opposite way, hurrying to the back of the room and the next hallway beyond it. There were fewer darkspawn there, and these seemed less disciplined somehow; two of them fought each other over what looked like some damaged leather armour, while the others scratched themselves, laid on the floor apparently sleeping, or just stood around looking bored.

I froze. Beyond them, clearly visible, was a large ring of metal surrounding the corridor entirely. I almost cheered out loud.The door!I couldn't see the mechanism from where I stood, so I inched closer to see if I could step through. There was a genlock lounging nearby, oblivious to the purpose of the enormous metal structure he was leaning against and to my presence; I held my breath and edged past him, so close he could have touched me without sitting up.

Nothing happened. I snuck through the door, and the darkspawn continued to ignore my presence. I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the other side and could see the entire door mechanism. There were no more darkspawn in sight, so I spent a few minutes examining the huge apparatus.

I was no expert on dwarven machinery, but it didn't look good. There were pieces that I was sure should have been attached together that weren't, and bits of thick wire sticking out at odd angles. The entire door looked somewhat crooked. Whatever was wrong with it, I wasn't going to be able to fix it.

I swore silently. I'd had visions of being able to close the door myself, cutting off the darkspawn on the other side from their reinforcements. Clenching my teeth in irritation at Rendon Howe – what sort of irresponsible ass left an open Deep Roads entrance in their basement? – I turned to go back, but changed my mind and instead went further in.I need to know how many more darkspawn are waiting down here.

The corridor where the barrier door sat was around a steep corner from whatever lay beyond, and I crept up to the edge, peering beyond. It was dark, more so than most of the Deep Roads, as no lava flowed through. I could tell, by the sound and the way the air felt, that I'd come across a vast chamber, no narrow hallway. The walls of the corridor had been smooth stone, but as far as I could see from where I stood, the cavern was rough-hewn and irregular. I wondered if it had been carved by dwarves or enlarged by darkspawn.

I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim light; there were specks of brighter light in the distance that, as my vision sharpened, became obvious as campfires. And there were at least a dozen of them spread out for hundreds of feet in front of me. I didn't know how many darkspawn gathered by each fire, but even if there were only a handful, there were more darkspawn than the Vigil could manage to fight off. The sounds echoing around the cavern made it seem worse than it was, I assumed, but the cacophony made my blood freeze.

Maker's breath, there could be hundreds of them.