Thanks to WellspringCD for being such a fabulous beta reader.

scritch, scritch, scritch. The tingle of darkspawn prickles over Fearghal's skin like the piercing of a thousand tiny needles. He tenses and gulps a lungful of the musty foetid air. Ignore it. Concentrate. He glances across at Alistair, who is grim-faced and radiating tension, his jaw set hard in a look that Fearghal has never seen on his lover; Alistair's face has never looked so closed, his eyes so hard. Alistair looks like Fearghal feels. He braces himself against the panic, the wild urge to howl in terror, to tear his own skin off.

Ahead of them a doorway. More tombs. That is all that's left down here. The darkspawn and the dead. They have left the remnants of the Legion behind them, and gone further into the Deep Roads than anyone else has in centuries. Except maybe Branka; hopefully Branka if Oghren is right.

"First day, they come and catch everyone."

The voice floats out of the gloom and makes the hair on the back of Fearghal's neck stand on end. Frozen to the spot he glances at Alistair, into wide brown eyes that hold the same confusion and fear that he feels. Alistair's head whips forward at the sound of a movement just ahead of them. Fearghal frowns and concentrates. Not a darkspawn; the prickling of his skin hasn't intensified. Tainted, though. A dwarf?

"Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat." For a second, Fearghal is concentrating so hard on the voice, on trying to locate it, he doesn't register the words. When their meaning becomes clear, he gasps and feels sweat break out on his brow.

"I reckon that might be one of Branka's House. Don't recognise the voice, though." Oghren moves through the gloom and scrapes some of the filth from the wall, uncovering a rune light. As he fiddles with it, the gloom fades, revealing the large chamber. Sarcophagi line the walls, their lids smashed and torn free. Dust swirls in the pool of light, all that remains of the dead laid to rest here.

"Third day, the men are all gnawed on again."

The hoarse voice is ahead of them, coming from beyond the doorway into another chamber. Fearghal forces his unwilling feet to move forwards, following the words like a trail of breadcrumbs.

"Fourth day, we wait and fear for our fate."

The words reel them in as if they are attached to a piece of string. On through the doorway.

Fearghal runs his hand along the wall as he enters the second chamber. When he feels the tell-tale bump under his gauntleted fingers, he scrapes the grime away and rubs the rune, allowing the light to escape. The second chamber is much as the first, the sarcophagi vandalised and looted.

"Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn."

Turn for what? Fearghal pushes the thought away, unwilling to consider it. He doesn't want to know.

"Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams."

He really, really doesn't want to know.

"Oh, Maker! They don't... do they?" Alistair's voice is full of horror, his mind questing ahead to where Fearghal dare not let his go.

"Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew."

Oghren groans in disgust and cusses long and loud. Fearghal moves ahead, searching out another light, following the words even as he refuses to understand them. Alistair is close at his shoulder, almost close enough to touch. Fearghal resists. A moment's comfort would undo him.

"Eighth day, we hated it as she is violated."

Just think on the voice, not the words. Follow the voice... the voice... the voice.

Another chamber. Fearghal finds another light and they move on.

"Ninth day, she grins and devours her kin."

The gloom of the corridor is disorienting after the soft dusty light of the preceding chambers. Fearghal hears footsteps, halting and slow and the voice beckons him, louder now.

"Now she does feast, as she's become the beast."

A sharp turn and an illuminated chamber ahead. The crouching figure is silhouetted against the light. Fearghal stumbles ahead on leaden feet and the figure stands and turns. A dwarven woman, her eyes glazed with fever and her skin dark with taint, greets them.

"Now you lay and wait, for their screams will haunt you in your dreams."

"Hespith?" Oghren sounds unsure.

The woman ignores him, gazing up at Fearghal.

"What is this? A human?" Her voice is cracked and hoarse."Feeding time brings only kin and clan. I am cruel to myself. You are a dream of strangers' faces and open doors." She shakes her head sadly and her shoulders slump.

Fearghal looks beyond her, trying to makes sense of the lumps of flesh that litter the room. The sense of horror is back and he forces his eyes back to the woman in front of him. Her head hangs down, limp hair obscuring her face.

Her lips start to move as she begins to recite her monstrous litany again. "First day, they come and catch everyone."

"What is that chant?" Fearghal isn't sure why he's asking because he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to understand the words.

"It is what I've seen. What I will become. I force it into verse so it is fantasy, unreal. That's the only place I can hide because they make me... they make me eat. And then..." A shuddering gasp for air past the words that stick in her throat, then she continues.

"All I could do was wish Laryn went first. I wished it upon her so that I would be spared." Her eyes flick up to Fearghal's and he can see the shame in her face.

"But I had to watch." Fearghal can hear the bitter edge in her voice. "I had to see the change. How do you endure that? How did Branka endure?"

"Are you from Branka's house?" It is a futile question, Fearghal already knows the answer, but he is desperate to steer the conversation away from what she would tell him if he let her.

"D-do not talk of Branka, of what she did!" There is a quiet fury in her voice and the echo of something else. Disgust? Guilt? "Ancestors preserve us, forgive me. I was her captain and I didn't stop her. Her lover and I, could not turn her. Forgive her... but no, she cannot be forgiven. Not for what she did. Not for what she has become."

Ignoring the startled squawk from Oghren, Fearghal asks as gently as he can, "What did she do, Hespith? What did Branka do?"

"I will not speak of her! Of what she did, of what we have become. I will not turn! I will not become what I have seen! Not Laryn! Not Branka!" The cracked, rasping voice becomes a rising crescendo of anguish that breaks suddenly as the woman turns and flees.

Alistair makes to move after her but Fearghal grabs his arm. The small tunnel the woman has disappeared into is dark, freshly dug. There will be no ancient rune lights in it and they have few torches left. And Fearghal is afraid of where she might lead them.

"Let her go, Alistair. We should keep moving." He feels the muscle relax under his hand and, just for a moment, he rubs the arm under his fingers, taking a sliver of comfort from the gesture, hoping it gives some to Alistair, too.

Oghren, stone-faced, leads the way out of the chamber. Fearghal doesn't know what to say to him and is relieved to sense a group of darkspawn nearby. He whispers a warning, then hefts his shield onto his arm and charges forward.

There is freedom in combat. As his sword slashes and parries, his shield blocks and smashes, Fearghal doesn't have to think of Hespith's words, of what they mean. They forge ahead. It occurs to him as he watches Alistair fight with an aggression that is foreign to him, and Oghren whirl his axe, consumed by his berserker rage, that he is not the only one who doesn't want to think. Bane is the only one of them to be unaffected, tearing out darkspawn throats with his usual relish.

Fearghal has lost count of how many groups they have encountered since meeting Hespith. He only knows that, for now, they have stopped coming and he is exhausted. They stop to rest, washing down dried meat and stale bread with tepid water. Sleep is impossible and he doesn't know how long they can continue like this. He watches Oghren's eyes droop and settles himself against a wall to doze. He will not sleep. Down here, nightmares of darkspawn are little more than the blink of an eye away.

"Can you smell that?" Alistair's words jerk him out of his almost-sleep and his eyes fly open.

Fearghal sniffs cautiously. There is the usual stale, fusty smell that has filled his nostrils for days now. But there is something else, too. Slightly sweet, like something rotten. He nods.

"Do you think they... I mean, from what she said, it sounded like..."

"I don't know." The sound of his voice cracks like a whip across Alistair's words. I hope I never know. "Don't think about it, just try to get some rest." He knows better than to suggest sleep. Alistair wakes screaming and gibbering as often as he does.

Alistair swallows and nods. They sit in silence listening to Oghren snore. Fearghal lets his eyes close and thinks back over the last few days, shutting out more recent events. He hadn't expected it to be this bad, not after their first foray into the Deep Roads. The oppressive, musty darkness, the constant itch of darkspawn along his nerves that makes him want to scream and flay the skin from his bones just to stop it. The sight of the Archdemon and the horde that accompanied it deep in the trench, near where they had encountered the Legion of the Dead. Fearghal forces his lungs to expand as he recalls the heart-stopping terror of it.

He remembers his fear at the vision he'd seen at his Joining; the reality was a hundred times worse. He tries to fight the despair that threatens. How are he and Alistair supposed to kill that? He hears Alistair fidget and wants to grab his hand and pull him away from here and just run. Away from the Deep Roads, from Orzammar, from Ferelden. Away from his past, from the grief and the pain. Away from the future that is filled with the Archdemon.

He sighs. His backside has gone numb from sitting on the hard stone floor. He wrenches his eyes open and struggles onto his feet, ignoring his fatigue.

"We should get moving." He kicks Oghren's foot as Alistair stands, picking up his pack. The dwarf grumbles but gathers his things and then they are moving again.

After a time, Fearghal realises that the rock under their feet has given way to something else, something softer. The sweet, rotten smell is getting stronger. As they search the walls for rune lights their fingers brush over something growing on the walls. Not the usual black fungus that's easily brushed away. Torches are lit and Fearghal blinks stupidly. The walls are pink. It almost looks like... He feels sick as he realises that it is flesh. It crawls along the floor and walls, like ivy. At the foot of the walls there are fleshy sacs. Fearghal draws his sword and pierces one; a grey half-formed creature spills out in a gush of fluid and thrashes weakly on the floor before he runs it through.

"They're... eggs?" Fearghal can hear the repugnance in Alistair's voice. He strides up the passage, resolutely ignoring the way his booted feet sink into the soft spongy substance that covers the floor. The way opens out into a large cavern and Fearghal can only stare at the thing that confronts him.

It's a woman, or rather a grotesque parody of something that might once have been a woman. A huge mountain of flesh topped by a ravaged face on a distorted head. Rows of teats cascade down its front, as if this monstrous being is capable of nurturing. Fearghal feels his gorge rising and swallows hard. He can feel Alistair, Bane and Oghren behind him. Soft gasps of horror and Bane growling.

"Kill it!" he snarls, running forward and, eventually, they do. And Fearghal waits to wake up, screaming. But he's beginning to think this nightmare will never end.