*does an impression of Vader*
NOOOOooooooooOooooo!
That had better not be the last chapter, or I'm going to curl up in a corner and cry! D:
Dragon Age: The Hunt (Fanfiction) (Completed - Now with Art!)
Débuté par
Shadow of Light Dragon
, janv. 09 2010 03:21
Retour en haut
#127
Posté 22 février 2010 - 01:11
Freckles04
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ARGH! You tease! You must post the next chapter now! Now, I say! 
#128
Posté 22 février 2010 - 01:17
Sisimka
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Freckles04 wrote...
ARGH! You tease! You must post the next chapter now! Now, I say!
You can't talk! Where is your next chapter?
Why does everyone insist on posting chapter by chapter? (Yes, I realise I am just as guilty, but now that mine is finished I'm relying on the rest of you for my daily fix!)
#129
Posté 22 février 2010 - 03:15
Jules8445
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Oh. My. God. I can't handle this. We saw him....SAW HIM and then you go and throw her off a cliff! If I didn't love you so much for this story, I would hate you right now. *crosses arms and pouts*
Next chapter with Zev + Al reunion + going to rescue Asleena needs to get up FAST...before I DIE from suspense.
Next chapter with Zev + Al reunion + going to rescue Asleena needs to get up FAST...before I DIE from suspense.
#130
Posté 22 février 2010 - 03:21
Miliat
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Jules8445 wrote...
Oh. My. God. I can't handle this. We saw him....SAW HIM and then you go and throw her off a cliff! If I didn't love you so much for this story, I would hate you right now. *crosses arms and pouts*
Next chapter with Zev + Al reunion + going to rescue Asleena needs to get up FAST...before I DIE from suspense.
What she said!
#131
Posté 22 février 2010 - 08:39
Treason1
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Jules8445 wrote...
Oh. My. God. I can't handle this. We saw him....SAW HIM and then you go and throw her off a cliff! If I didn't love you so much for this story, I would hate you right now. *crosses arms and pouts*
Next chapter with Zev + Al reunion + going to rescue Asleena needs to get up FAST...before I DIE from suspense.
Who says Alistair's on the surface, anymore, hmmm? Maybe it'll be her and him, in the tunnels.
Or, maybe the story will stay focused on Zev as he tries to go below and look for her. Maybe he doesn't find her, only signs that she's been dragged off by darkspawn?
The tittle of the story, is, after all, "The Hunt." I've no idea how long the author intends to keep posting, but all this time, The Hunt could have had nothing to do with getting Alistair. That was just the set up.
#132
Posté 22 février 2010 - 08:47
K9miles
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umm... ferrix? does anyone else but me care about her faithful hound?!?!
#133
Posté 22 février 2010 - 08:50
master-fluff
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Jules8445 wrote...
Oh. My. God. I can't handle this. We saw him....SAW HIM and then you go and throw her off a cliff! If I didn't love you so much for this story, I would hate you right now. *crosses arms and pouts*
Next chapter with Zev + Al reunion + going to rescue Asleena needs to get up FAST...before I DIE from suspense.
and Ferrix, don't forget about leaving the doggie in the lurch too ! How cruel can a writer be ?!
(ps. loving your work, Shadow)
Modifié par master-fluff, 22 février 2010 - 08:50 .
#134
Posté 23 février 2010 - 12:37
Sialater
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Cruel!
Course, I'm not any better....
Course, I'm not any better....
#135
Posté 23 février 2010 - 06:24
Shadow of Light Dragon
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*insert diabolical author laughter here* 
#136
Posté 23 février 2010 - 07:28
Emma-Lath
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best.chapter.ever....
I love the very end when she realizes that she can't hold onto the branch any longer
I think I might die from the suspense, I want to know what going to happen next
I love the very end when she realizes that she can't hold onto the branch any longer
I think I might die from the suspense, I want to know what going to happen next
#137
Posté 23 février 2010 - 02:42
moemie
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Loved this one, can't wait to see what happens next
#138
Posté 26 février 2010 - 03:39
Phoenix Swordsinger
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That was wonderful!!!! I'm selfishly with the rest. MORE MORE MORE.
#139
Posté 27 février 2010 - 03:30
Shadow of Light Dragon
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Sorry for the delay, life got busy all of a sudden and this chapter really didn't want to be written. >.< Not as long as I wanted, but more will be along soon and I didn't want to keep you in suspense any longer... *innocent look* (Please don't kill me XD)
Part 20 - Into the Night
Zevran lost track of how long he stared down into the black, his arm still hanging below him. He couldn’t shake the last image of her face from his mind, white and afraid and suddenly looking as young as she truly was…not the mighty hero everyone saw her as…not the indomitable Grey Warden who had ended the Blight.
“I’m sorry, Zevran,” a voice that was not hers said from somewhere behind him. It even sounded sympathetic.
Sorry for what? She is not dead.
He had to move. He had to go after her, not lie here uselessly.
He managed to transfer his gaze from the fissure to his fingers, which was no better a focus point, for he was wearing the leather gloves she had given him. He rarely went without them. She had remembered some nonsense he’d told her about his mother, come across these one day and…thought of him.
“Do I seem surprised? Perhaps I am. No one has simply…given me a gift before. Thank you.”
But she had been like that. Forever listening to the idle talk of her companions and giving them gifts she thought they might like, not because she wanted anything in return but because she enjoyed seeing them happy. As far as Zevran was aware, Alistair was the only one who had ever thought to give her something tangible in return…just a rose, but how she had smiled at the man upon receiving it…
“We shouldn’t linger here,” Sindel’s voice broke through his reverie.
Zevran withdrew his hand and curled his fingers, listening to the supple Dalish leather creak at the movement. He reached carefully to a hidden pocket sewn on the inside of his shirt and felt the hardness of a jewelled earring press through the material. He had thought…several times…but never the right moment…never appropriate…
Now it may well be never at all.
He crawled backwards along the deadfall.
“We should keep moving,” Sindel said. “Find the others.”
“And then what?” Zevran heard himself reply. “Ask them to help? She might be dead by the time we reach them.”
And how in Andraste’s holy name would I explain this to Alistair, presuming he lives? Hah…perhaps riding in to her rescue would break the ice between them. Now there’s a thought.
“That’s not what I had in mind,” Sindel said carefully. Her voice held an odd mixture of pity and resolve. “They might need our help, mine specifically, to flood the earthwound.”
Zevran set his feet on solid ground and stood very slowly. Now that really was too much. Not only did this elf expect him to walk away, but help her drown Asleena as well? Did she expect Alistair would agree to that? No matter what arguments lay between the two Wardens, he couldn’t believe the bastard prince would wish Asleena dead...not if he heard she’d come all this way looking for him.
But it was the death of a single person to destroy this nest of darkspawn and save the Green Dales. Wasn’t sacrificing themselves what Grey Wardens did? Perhaps he would agree. Perhaps she would too.
What does it matter if they agree? It is my choice, not theirs, and I say she will not die.
Zevran faced the Dalish Keeper. “I swore to remain at her side and so I shall. I am going after her.” He tossed the coil of rope down into the abyss.
Sindel was shaking her head. “That won’t be long enough.” She looked at him then away. A soft sigh escaped her lips. “If your heart is set upon this, then abide a time here with me. When I regain some more energy I can put a Lifeward upon you as well. You can jump after her…to whatever end.”
Zevran accepted this and did not allow his mind to dwell upon the consequences. It would certainly get him down there faster than climbing, and there had to be another way out than up, one the darkspawn used. “You can follow,” he told Sindel. “She will need a healer. I am guessing you would also like to find out what became of your mentor Turii.”
The Keeper looked dubious but tempted at the last, just as he’d hoped. “My duty should be to my people and ending this threat. But…I could get in and out of that place more easily than anyone…”
“How do you mean?”
“I am Blessed of Andruil,” Sindel said with a faintly proud smile. “The forms of the hawk and the hare are mine.”
Zevran’s brows lifted. “You are a shapeshifter?”
The other elf shook her head. “Not in the way the magi would classify it. What I can do is a gift of the Lady of the Hunt, not an art I have learned at the feet of another. It has been thus even before I took the vallaslin of the goddess.” She strode up to the edge of the chasm. “I can put a Lifeward upon you, Zevran, then turn into a hawk. I would have to hold on to your armour with my talons or risk getting separated from you in the dark on the way down. But the landing might still injure or kill me,” she muttered. “I can’t put a Lifeward upon myself. No, that won’t work…”
“The rope,” Zevran suggested quickly. “I will untie it from the tree and bind it to my arm. You can hold the free end, and when it becomes slack you would know when I hit the ground.”
“Yes…yes, that will work!”
Zevran hurried to retrieve the rope, first pulling up the greater length from the earthwound then untying the rest from the tree. As he did the second task, he found himself looking off into the forest and thinking of Ferrix. That the warhound had not shown up by now…if he was dead it would be a harsh blow to Asleena, but Zevran could not risk taking the time to find the mabari, alive or otherwise.
“Understand,” Sindel said, “that I won’t stay down there if it becomes too dangerous or if it starts to flood, nor do I know how you might escape. I will heal your friend as I can, if I can, and you if you need it, but I haven’t been the Keeper of my clan for long. I don’t even have an apprentice yet…much would be lost to my people if I died and I can’t allow that.”
“Then I’m surprised you came with us at all,” Zevran said, securing a knot around his left arm. “Was that not dangerous for you?”
“Some would say so…mostly those who went with Alistair,” she muttered, not quite softly enough for Zevran not to hear, “but I argue I could slip away as a hare at any time.” She concentrated, motioned with her staff and Zevran was entwined with the same shimmering green lines that had surrounded Asleena. It was a spell Wynne had used on occasion as well, and with the magic came the familiar comforting sense of security. It would be wrong to think of it as invulnerability, more of a safety net, similar to what some circus troupes used for their more dangerous stunts. Some people thought that with such a net in place a man should have no fear of the fall.
Those people would not say such things were they to stand as high as the performers did.
Zevran hauled himself atop the deadfall and walked along the creaking wood, ignoring the hammering of his heart and trying very hard not to look at the gaping blackness below him. He had to get out as far as Asleena had, if only because jumping straight from the edge of the fissure might bang him against the stone slope and kill him before he reached the ground. His eyes focussed on the dead wood beneath his feet, and the Antivan boots he wore.
Another gift from Asleena, he recalled…
“Are you ready?” Sindel asked.
Zevran looked over, sucked in a breath and nodded tersely.
Sindel put her staff away and spread her arms, flaring them up above her head like a dancer might. There was no slow change, nor the lengthy wait that had always accompanied Morrigan’s shapechanging, merely a soft sound as of rushing feathers and a touch like the passing of a breeze and the elf woman was gone, replaced by a dark-feathered and fierce-eyed bird of prey. She fluttered low to the ground with strong beats of her wings, snatched up the free end of the rope in both claws and flew out over the abyss, below the deadfall and Zevran’s position upon it but out of the way. The hawk shrieked once and Zevran nodded again. He tugged the rope that was still lying on the ground out so that it hung into the darkness and wouldn’t catch on anything, held his backpack with its precious contents of vials and jars to his chest and crossed both arms protectively over it.
Fixing his eyes on the moon, drawing another deep inhalation, the assassin fell backwards and counted silently as the stars disappeared from the sky one by one…
**
Tha-thump…
Zevran’s form dwindled and vanished far above, swallowed by a rush of air and night. The last thing Asleena remembered seeing clearly was his hair; illuminated by the moon it had surrounded his face like a pale halo.
Tha-thump…
She clenched her eyes shut. Her broken leg pulsed agony with every beat of her heart. Her shoulders and arms still burned, but the sore muscles were relaxing now. She could feel the wind passing between her outstretched fingers as she tumbled down.
Tha-thump…
The fall would not kill her. That’s what Sindel had said. Asleena couldn’t help wondering if it would still hurt. How long would she last down here without her sword and with a broken leg? Hours? Seconds? Would they pounce on her as soon as she crashed to the ground? Kill her quickly? Eat her flesh while she still drew breath?
Grey Warden she might be, but not for that long. She wasn’t supposed to take this walk for another thirty years.
Tha-thump…
Funny…when Alistair had told her how long she had to live after drinking that blood, it had sounded far too short. Now she’d have been grateful for half those years…or just one more of them.
She didn’t want to leave all her friends behind, Ferrix lost or her brother alone.
She didn’t want to die.
CRUNCH.
Asleena’s shriek of pain as the agony of landing jarred her leg was muffled by whatever she’d landed in, and came close to blacking her out. Blinding white specks flashed angrily before her eyes and her whole body jerked in an excruciating spasm as she folded around herself, sobbing uncontrollably. It felt an age before she could even think past the torture pounding in her leg, but when she finally recovered some of her senses it was only to have her mind flooded by another sensation.
Taint.
Gasping for air through her tears, she strained to uncurl her body and master herself. If the darkspawn came upon her while she was incapacitated by pain she wouldn’t survive long at all. Breathing hard through her nose, she forced her fingers to scrape at the substance she’d landed in and at that point noticed the emerald web of the Lifeward was still flickering around her limbs, a brilliant light in the fire-tinged darkness. Whatever was beneath her had cushioned her fall, sparing her fatal injury.
It was…yielding and blubberous and felt like…felt like flesh…
TAINT.
She held still, heart pounding with realisation. Moving slowly, both from caution and because her hands refused to stop shaking, she unbuckled Duncan’s shield from her back and strapped it securely to her left arm. The tightness of the leather strap and the grip of the handle in her fist steadied her some.
In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death…
Asleena set her jaw and reached for her belt.
Her dagger flashed into her right hand just as one of the broodmother’s tentacles wrapped around her torso and jerked her into the air.
Part 20 - Into the Night
Zevran lost track of how long he stared down into the black, his arm still hanging below him. He couldn’t shake the last image of her face from his mind, white and afraid and suddenly looking as young as she truly was…not the mighty hero everyone saw her as…not the indomitable Grey Warden who had ended the Blight.
“I’m sorry, Zevran,” a voice that was not hers said from somewhere behind him. It even sounded sympathetic.
Sorry for what? She is not dead.
He had to move. He had to go after her, not lie here uselessly.
He managed to transfer his gaze from the fissure to his fingers, which was no better a focus point, for he was wearing the leather gloves she had given him. He rarely went without them. She had remembered some nonsense he’d told her about his mother, come across these one day and…thought of him.
“Do I seem surprised? Perhaps I am. No one has simply…given me a gift before. Thank you.”
But she had been like that. Forever listening to the idle talk of her companions and giving them gifts she thought they might like, not because she wanted anything in return but because she enjoyed seeing them happy. As far as Zevran was aware, Alistair was the only one who had ever thought to give her something tangible in return…just a rose, but how she had smiled at the man upon receiving it…
“We shouldn’t linger here,” Sindel’s voice broke through his reverie.
Zevran withdrew his hand and curled his fingers, listening to the supple Dalish leather creak at the movement. He reached carefully to a hidden pocket sewn on the inside of his shirt and felt the hardness of a jewelled earring press through the material. He had thought…several times…but never the right moment…never appropriate…
Now it may well be never at all.
He crawled backwards along the deadfall.
“We should keep moving,” Sindel said. “Find the others.”
“And then what?” Zevran heard himself reply. “Ask them to help? She might be dead by the time we reach them.”
And how in Andraste’s holy name would I explain this to Alistair, presuming he lives? Hah…perhaps riding in to her rescue would break the ice between them. Now there’s a thought.
“That’s not what I had in mind,” Sindel said carefully. Her voice held an odd mixture of pity and resolve. “They might need our help, mine specifically, to flood the earthwound.”
Zevran set his feet on solid ground and stood very slowly. Now that really was too much. Not only did this elf expect him to walk away, but help her drown Asleena as well? Did she expect Alistair would agree to that? No matter what arguments lay between the two Wardens, he couldn’t believe the bastard prince would wish Asleena dead...not if he heard she’d come all this way looking for him.
But it was the death of a single person to destroy this nest of darkspawn and save the Green Dales. Wasn’t sacrificing themselves what Grey Wardens did? Perhaps he would agree. Perhaps she would too.
What does it matter if they agree? It is my choice, not theirs, and I say she will not die.
Zevran faced the Dalish Keeper. “I swore to remain at her side and so I shall. I am going after her.” He tossed the coil of rope down into the abyss.
Sindel was shaking her head. “That won’t be long enough.” She looked at him then away. A soft sigh escaped her lips. “If your heart is set upon this, then abide a time here with me. When I regain some more energy I can put a Lifeward upon you as well. You can jump after her…to whatever end.”
Zevran accepted this and did not allow his mind to dwell upon the consequences. It would certainly get him down there faster than climbing, and there had to be another way out than up, one the darkspawn used. “You can follow,” he told Sindel. “She will need a healer. I am guessing you would also like to find out what became of your mentor Turii.”
The Keeper looked dubious but tempted at the last, just as he’d hoped. “My duty should be to my people and ending this threat. But…I could get in and out of that place more easily than anyone…”
“How do you mean?”
“I am Blessed of Andruil,” Sindel said with a faintly proud smile. “The forms of the hawk and the hare are mine.”
Zevran’s brows lifted. “You are a shapeshifter?”
The other elf shook her head. “Not in the way the magi would classify it. What I can do is a gift of the Lady of the Hunt, not an art I have learned at the feet of another. It has been thus even before I took the vallaslin of the goddess.” She strode up to the edge of the chasm. “I can put a Lifeward upon you, Zevran, then turn into a hawk. I would have to hold on to your armour with my talons or risk getting separated from you in the dark on the way down. But the landing might still injure or kill me,” she muttered. “I can’t put a Lifeward upon myself. No, that won’t work…”
“The rope,” Zevran suggested quickly. “I will untie it from the tree and bind it to my arm. You can hold the free end, and when it becomes slack you would know when I hit the ground.”
“Yes…yes, that will work!”
Zevran hurried to retrieve the rope, first pulling up the greater length from the earthwound then untying the rest from the tree. As he did the second task, he found himself looking off into the forest and thinking of Ferrix. That the warhound had not shown up by now…if he was dead it would be a harsh blow to Asleena, but Zevran could not risk taking the time to find the mabari, alive or otherwise.
“Understand,” Sindel said, “that I won’t stay down there if it becomes too dangerous or if it starts to flood, nor do I know how you might escape. I will heal your friend as I can, if I can, and you if you need it, but I haven’t been the Keeper of my clan for long. I don’t even have an apprentice yet…much would be lost to my people if I died and I can’t allow that.”
“Then I’m surprised you came with us at all,” Zevran said, securing a knot around his left arm. “Was that not dangerous for you?”
“Some would say so…mostly those who went with Alistair,” she muttered, not quite softly enough for Zevran not to hear, “but I argue I could slip away as a hare at any time.” She concentrated, motioned with her staff and Zevran was entwined with the same shimmering green lines that had surrounded Asleena. It was a spell Wynne had used on occasion as well, and with the magic came the familiar comforting sense of security. It would be wrong to think of it as invulnerability, more of a safety net, similar to what some circus troupes used for their more dangerous stunts. Some people thought that with such a net in place a man should have no fear of the fall.
Those people would not say such things were they to stand as high as the performers did.
Zevran hauled himself atop the deadfall and walked along the creaking wood, ignoring the hammering of his heart and trying very hard not to look at the gaping blackness below him. He had to get out as far as Asleena had, if only because jumping straight from the edge of the fissure might bang him against the stone slope and kill him before he reached the ground. His eyes focussed on the dead wood beneath his feet, and the Antivan boots he wore.
Another gift from Asleena, he recalled…
“Are you ready?” Sindel asked.
Zevran looked over, sucked in a breath and nodded tersely.
Sindel put her staff away and spread her arms, flaring them up above her head like a dancer might. There was no slow change, nor the lengthy wait that had always accompanied Morrigan’s shapechanging, merely a soft sound as of rushing feathers and a touch like the passing of a breeze and the elf woman was gone, replaced by a dark-feathered and fierce-eyed bird of prey. She fluttered low to the ground with strong beats of her wings, snatched up the free end of the rope in both claws and flew out over the abyss, below the deadfall and Zevran’s position upon it but out of the way. The hawk shrieked once and Zevran nodded again. He tugged the rope that was still lying on the ground out so that it hung into the darkness and wouldn’t catch on anything, held his backpack with its precious contents of vials and jars to his chest and crossed both arms protectively over it.
Fixing his eyes on the moon, drawing another deep inhalation, the assassin fell backwards and counted silently as the stars disappeared from the sky one by one…
**
Tha-thump…
Zevran’s form dwindled and vanished far above, swallowed by a rush of air and night. The last thing Asleena remembered seeing clearly was his hair; illuminated by the moon it had surrounded his face like a pale halo.
Tha-thump…
She clenched her eyes shut. Her broken leg pulsed agony with every beat of her heart. Her shoulders and arms still burned, but the sore muscles were relaxing now. She could feel the wind passing between her outstretched fingers as she tumbled down.
Tha-thump…
The fall would not kill her. That’s what Sindel had said. Asleena couldn’t help wondering if it would still hurt. How long would she last down here without her sword and with a broken leg? Hours? Seconds? Would they pounce on her as soon as she crashed to the ground? Kill her quickly? Eat her flesh while she still drew breath?
Grey Warden she might be, but not for that long. She wasn’t supposed to take this walk for another thirty years.
Tha-thump…
Funny…when Alistair had told her how long she had to live after drinking that blood, it had sounded far too short. Now she’d have been grateful for half those years…or just one more of them.
She didn’t want to leave all her friends behind, Ferrix lost or her brother alone.
She didn’t want to die.
CRUNCH.
Asleena’s shriek of pain as the agony of landing jarred her leg was muffled by whatever she’d landed in, and came close to blacking her out. Blinding white specks flashed angrily before her eyes and her whole body jerked in an excruciating spasm as she folded around herself, sobbing uncontrollably. It felt an age before she could even think past the torture pounding in her leg, but when she finally recovered some of her senses it was only to have her mind flooded by another sensation.
Taint.
Gasping for air through her tears, she strained to uncurl her body and master herself. If the darkspawn came upon her while she was incapacitated by pain she wouldn’t survive long at all. Breathing hard through her nose, she forced her fingers to scrape at the substance she’d landed in and at that point noticed the emerald web of the Lifeward was still flickering around her limbs, a brilliant light in the fire-tinged darkness. Whatever was beneath her had cushioned her fall, sparing her fatal injury.
It was…yielding and blubberous and felt like…felt like flesh…
TAINT.
She held still, heart pounding with realisation. Moving slowly, both from caution and because her hands refused to stop shaking, she unbuckled Duncan’s shield from her back and strapped it securely to her left arm. The tightness of the leather strap and the grip of the handle in her fist steadied her some.
In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death…
Asleena set her jaw and reached for her belt.
Her dagger flashed into her right hand just as one of the broodmother’s tentacles wrapped around her torso and jerked her into the air.
Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 04 mars 2010 - 10:28 .
#140
Posté 27 février 2010 - 04:15
Emma-Lath
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So...is it unhealthly that I've started checking this forum multiple times a day to see if there is a new chapter.....
Anyways, this chapter was soooooo good!
I wonder where Alistair is when all of this is happening
Anyways, this chapter was soooooo good!
I wonder where Alistair is when all of this is happening
#141
Posté 27 février 2010 - 04:35
Sandtigress
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Arghhhh I've caught up and WHAT a cliff hanger! Definitely need more. Like, right now.
I love how you bring in game elements, like no one talking about Alistair's leaving. That bugged me too, to noooo end. Keep up the great work! Can't wait to read more!
I love how you bring in game elements, like no one talking about Alistair's leaving. That bugged me too, to noooo end. Keep up the great work! Can't wait to read more!
#143
Posté 27 février 2010 - 05:27
Taiyama
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Holy cow, for a second there I was scared that she had landed on Alistair's corpse. Thank God it was simply the Broodmother--I can't believe I'm saying that, by the way.
Eagerly awaiting the next installment!
Eagerly awaiting the next installment!
#144
Posté 27 février 2010 - 06:38
Kulkodar
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Wow ! Spectacular story. Now we wait! Grrr you wicked Dragon! 
#145
Posté 27 février 2010 - 07:48
Jules8445
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Yup...pretty much stalk this place all day, every day, just to see if you've posted. >.< My god, where the eff is Alistair?! He needs to get his brooding arse down there and help Zev rescue Asleena. I'm going nuts here...each chapter a bigger cliffhanger than the last. It's almost too much awesomeness for one person to handle.
#146
Posté 02 mars 2010 - 06:22
Tarante11a
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Although I've posted on ff.net, I just wanted to post here too.
This fic is just fantastic. I read it from the beginning to the latest chapter this evening and I'm completely and utterly hooked. Page turning, soooo readable and I am sick with envy at how well Shadow writes Zevran. And Asleena is actually appealing, I like her anyway.
Such a good story and I just can't wait for the next bit. Have to say, for all the imminent arrival of the 1st Airborn Zevran Search & Rescue - broken legs and Broodmothers are not a good mix - where IS Alistair. He'd better not turn up being the petulant arse. Votes for Zevran giving him a 'talking to' anyone - I'm selling tickets? Perhaps Ferrix should just pee on his shoes... where IS Ferrix?
Can't wait...
This fic is just fantastic. I read it from the beginning to the latest chapter this evening and I'm completely and utterly hooked. Page turning, soooo readable and I am sick with envy at how well Shadow writes Zevran. And Asleena is actually appealing, I like her anyway.
Such a good story and I just can't wait for the next bit. Have to say, for all the imminent arrival of the 1st Airborn Zevran Search & Rescue - broken legs and Broodmothers are not a good mix - where IS Alistair. He'd better not turn up being the petulant arse. Votes for Zevran giving him a 'talking to' anyone - I'm selling tickets? Perhaps Ferrix should just pee on his shoes... where IS Ferrix?
Can't wait...
#147
Posté 02 mars 2010 - 10:13
ReubenLiew
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Stupid broodmother, if she'd only wait like an extra 15 seconds the out of combat regen would've kicked in!
#148
Posté 02 mars 2010 - 10:49
Minaleth
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- 1 120 messages
I enjoy your story very much, thank you for writing ^^
#149
Posté 03 mars 2010 - 01:26
Shadow of Light Dragon
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- 5 179 messages
Taiyama, your comment totally cracked me up. Coffee-spray worthy, had I been drinking coffee at the time. Thanks. XD
And a moment to once again say 'Thank you!' to all the encouraging comments. They're wonderful to read and brighten me up tremendously. Long weekend coming up down here, so here's hoping I'll get a good chunk typed along the way!
Part 21 - Holding On
Sweat, pain, the screech of metal, the tearing of flesh, bright red blood and voices…shouts, cries, screams in the darkness.
Asleena’s roar was without words, a noise born of pure defiance. She vented her wrath in the broodmother’s very face as it whipped her nearer its vast bulk, the tentacle gripping her once again trying, and failing, to clench and crush her dragonbone cuirass. As she had the last time, and the time before that, the Grey Warden waited until she was as close as she could bear before lashing out with her small blade, stabbing towards eyes and mouth and throat. The broodmother howled and recoiled, thrusting her away but not dropping her.
The monstrous creature was every bit as corpulent and disgusting as the one she’d seen in the Deep Roads, and there was nothing at all to even suggest it had once been an elf, let alone a Keeper of the Dalish. Mindless except for hunger and rage and the taint that drove its will to breed and reproduce for the darkspawn masses, it was a thing to drive terror into even the staunchest heart—particularly the heart of a woman. A small mercy that Asleena was a Grey Warden and immune to the same fate…she had no need to worry about becoming a hurlock breeding ground, only about being torn apart and eaten to sustain the insatiable appetite of an abomination that could give birth to entire litters of sharlocks at a time.
Its face, upper chest and swollen arms were already a mass of cuts and gashes where previous dagger-thrusts had landed; entire slabs of meat had been cut away in places, exposing muscle or bone. While not difficult to strike due to its sheer size, it was incredibly hard to deliver a killing blow. Where the heart beat beneath the noisome rolls of bloated flesh was impossible to tell, nor would Asleena’s weapon have been long enough to reach it in any case. The thick neck and the head, the brain, were her only chances for a swift victory, and for that she relied upon the broodmother keeping her aloft. The tentacle grasping her she could not hack at, regardless of her soul-deep desires to the contrary. Not only would that drop her to ground level, it would land her on her bad leg, and Maker only knew if she’d be able to keep going after that shocked her system.
Her mind, everything in her that wanted to survive and kill this tainted atrocity, had been kicked into high speed. Past battles and experience leapt unerringly to the fore with a clarity that only truly shone through in the most desperate of conflicts, and she let that knowledge consume her every thought, hold back the physical agony that sapped her strength, fend off black despair, shield against panic. In other struggles, back during the Blight, her companions would have rallied around her when she was like this, drawn to her side as though she were some kind of oasis amidst a storm of battle-madness.
But she was alone here.
Other tentacles battered at her head and shield when she was held at a distance. Too bulky to grasp her dagger, the shield was large enough for the tip of a tentacle to wind around and attempt to rip it from her arm, but that she could stab at, and she did so without mercy, covering herself with gobbets of gore and tainted blood before the abused limb pulled away.
The broodmother held her at a safe distance then, ceasing its onslaught and simply leering at her. Something seemed to be going on behind those taint-maddened eyes.
Asleena used the brief respite to wipe blood from her eyes, then readied herself once more. “What are you waiting for?” she grated. “Come on!”
There was a hideous bubbling sound, a mockery of laughter, then the tentacle moved. Asleena saw a brief blur of flesh and rock as she was wrenched around, then the pressure around her midsection was gone and she was hurtling straight for a jagged stone wall at breakneck speed.
It should have killed her.
The Lifeward flared…
**
…and winked out.
The network of green lines shattered, counteracting the harsh jolt of killing pain that tore through Zevran’s body. Impact with solid rock should have smashed his skull and broken half the bones in his body. He almost cried out, but Crow training took control, keeping him almost completely silent even though his mind had been convinced Death finally whispered his name and curled possessive fingers around his heart.
He shook phantom voices from his head and tried to roll onto his side, biting back a groan of agony. The spell might have saved his life, but it had not made him impervious to harm. He was bleeding, most of it from his ears and nose he realised, badly bruised, and would not have been at all surprised had a chirurgeon told him several internal organs had just been pulped.
Retaining enough presence of mind to tug at the rope bound to his arm and guide Sindel to his location, he lay still and quiet and looked around for immediate threats. He could not have landed far away from—
Asleena’s voice split the night, very close, savage and in terrible pain. Zevran was on his feet without a second thought, though his head spun as soon as he stood. He staggered sideways and bruised his knuckles when he thrust out a hand to brace himself against a rocky outcropping, misjudging the distance. Gripping the rope again he tugged more urgently, and there was a beating of wings as the hawk descended then changed form before touching ground.
Sindel gave the assassin a single glance through the gloom then touched his shoulder and whispered something. A blue glow suffused her hand and regenerative energies surged through Zevran’s body.
“Give it a moment,” she breathed, bringing her staff to hand. “I saw from above. There is light and a monster. That way.”
Zevran did not heed the part about waiting, setting off quickly in the direction indicated as he shouldered his pack and drew his blades. When his left foot pressed down on something that was not solid he jerked back and canted his sword to strike, but it was no darkspawn lying in wait or even a body. More a puddle or mound of…something…He ignored it and Sindel’s sharp intake of breath both, pressing onwards with greater speed as the noise of something ahead became more distinct.
The passage widened into a cavernous expanse, the floor awash with offal and afterbirth, dominated by a creature that no explanation of Leliana’s could have sufficiently described. When the bard had returned from the Deep Roads with Oghren, Alistair and Asleena, her usual flair for words had failed her upon reaching the part about the broodmother. None of the party that had faced the thing had wanted to fully explain it, though Oghren had gotten drunk enough at one point to say ‘breasts’, ‘tentacles’ and ‘Branka was sodding crazy’ by way of explanation, which Zevran had found amusing at the time.
He felt no inclination to laugh now.
The grotesque thing was reared back, its laughing attention fixed upon a lone human woman held within the grip of two tentacles. One of these encircled Asleena’s breastplate while the other gripped both of her legs in a maliciously gentle coil. The Grey Warden’s spine was arched, eyes wide and rolled back, lips parted in a soundless scream. The broodmother might not have even been trying to wrench the limbs from her body; just pressing upon a broken bone with enough force could render anyone completely helpless.
She had no weapon in her right hand, Zevran noted quickly, but Duncan’s shield was strapped to her left. She was covered in blood, but so too was the broodmother’s face and neck. She’d put up a fight.
“Take my sword,” he said, reversing it to offer the hilt to Sindel, who transferred her horrified gaze from the broodmother to him. “If that thing drops Asleena, get to her side and put this in her hands.”
“What will you do?” she hissed.
“Take the sword!” he snapped, and she obeyed. “Can you heal her?”
“I can’t repair her leg! I can do what I can, but—“
“Then do what you can.” He pulled out a second dagger, the twin of the first, another of the Thorns of the Dead Gods. “Stay hidden while I get its attention.”
She drew a breath, nodded and crouched down beside the rocky wall. “Mythral protect you, Andruil guide your blades.”
Zevran stepped lightly into the cavern and circled, avoiding the flesh-piled ground where he could, wary eyes alert. He wanted to move swiftly to spare Asleena further torment, but haste would see him snared if he acted too soon. When he was positioned directly in front of the broodmother’s bloated chest he gathered himself, flipped both daggers so that the blades pointed down, then sprinted across the floor and jumped, driving his weapons into the blubberous mass he launched himself upon. Without pause, barely heeding the surprised roar from above, the assassin pulled one blade free and drove it higher, then the other, again and again like a climber with rock-spikes might scale a troublesome cliff…
**
The pain receded. Her right leg still screamed agony, but it was nothing compared to the debilitating torture that had paralysed her moments ago. Healing energy seared through her body, as warm and welcome as sunlight, and for a couple of blissful seconds she lost herself completely in the sensation.
“Asleena!” a familiar Antivan voice roared.
Her head came up and she gasped suddenly at the distance between herself and the ground. The broodmother was still holding her aloft but its attention had been diverted from her for the moment, its other tentacles smacking down repeatedly at the head and back of a blond elf who was making a spirited attempt to hack its neck open with his daggers.
Zevran?
And…is that Sindel on the ground?
How the…?
The tentacle gripping her moved and she grabbed at it instinctively, heart leaping into her throat. She did not want to get thrown against a wall again, but the broodmother had other ideas. Instead of hurling her across the cavern, it drove her towards Zevran, coming in from the side to sweep him away.
“Look out!” she yelled and he heard just in time to avoid being hit. He released one dagger from the bloody furrow in the broodmother’s throat and dropped down lower, but maintained his hold on the blade buried in its collarbone. Then, with his free hand, he reached out and grabbed at Asleena’s as she hurtled past. Their fingers locked and the connection skewed the tentacle’s path. Momentum swung Asleena around, right up close to the broodmother’s bloodied neck, and battle-sense took over without her heart even skipping a beat. The flat edge of Duncan’s silverite shield lifted and plunged into the open wound, driven deep by the broodmother’s own strength, to the telling sound of tearing gristle.
Zevran’s grip tightened as the tentacle holding her stiffened and yanked in an automatic reflex that would have dashed her against the floor. His face tightened with strain but he did not let go…then a terrible shudder ran through the broodmother’s bulk and it listed to one side, the tentacles falling away to coil upon the floor.
Asleena, half-lying across the monster’s shoulder with her shield and left arm buried three quarters of the way through its neck, paused a moment to catch her breath and come to terms with the fact that she was somehow alive, then grinned down at Zevran with unabashed relief.
The assassin squeezed her hand and grinned back. “Royally tough to kill,” he said quietly.
And a moment to once again say 'Thank you!' to all the encouraging comments. They're wonderful to read and brighten me up tremendously.
Long weekend coming up down here, so here's hoping I'll get a good chunk typed along the way!Part 21 - Holding On
Sweat, pain, the screech of metal, the tearing of flesh, bright red blood and voices…shouts, cries, screams in the darkness.
Asleena’s roar was without words, a noise born of pure defiance. She vented her wrath in the broodmother’s very face as it whipped her nearer its vast bulk, the tentacle gripping her once again trying, and failing, to clench and crush her dragonbone cuirass. As she had the last time, and the time before that, the Grey Warden waited until she was as close as she could bear before lashing out with her small blade, stabbing towards eyes and mouth and throat. The broodmother howled and recoiled, thrusting her away but not dropping her.
The monstrous creature was every bit as corpulent and disgusting as the one she’d seen in the Deep Roads, and there was nothing at all to even suggest it had once been an elf, let alone a Keeper of the Dalish. Mindless except for hunger and rage and the taint that drove its will to breed and reproduce for the darkspawn masses, it was a thing to drive terror into even the staunchest heart—particularly the heart of a woman. A small mercy that Asleena was a Grey Warden and immune to the same fate…she had no need to worry about becoming a hurlock breeding ground, only about being torn apart and eaten to sustain the insatiable appetite of an abomination that could give birth to entire litters of sharlocks at a time.
Its face, upper chest and swollen arms were already a mass of cuts and gashes where previous dagger-thrusts had landed; entire slabs of meat had been cut away in places, exposing muscle or bone. While not difficult to strike due to its sheer size, it was incredibly hard to deliver a killing blow. Where the heart beat beneath the noisome rolls of bloated flesh was impossible to tell, nor would Asleena’s weapon have been long enough to reach it in any case. The thick neck and the head, the brain, were her only chances for a swift victory, and for that she relied upon the broodmother keeping her aloft. The tentacle grasping her she could not hack at, regardless of her soul-deep desires to the contrary. Not only would that drop her to ground level, it would land her on her bad leg, and Maker only knew if she’d be able to keep going after that shocked her system.
Her mind, everything in her that wanted to survive and kill this tainted atrocity, had been kicked into high speed. Past battles and experience leapt unerringly to the fore with a clarity that only truly shone through in the most desperate of conflicts, and she let that knowledge consume her every thought, hold back the physical agony that sapped her strength, fend off black despair, shield against panic. In other struggles, back during the Blight, her companions would have rallied around her when she was like this, drawn to her side as though she were some kind of oasis amidst a storm of battle-madness.
But she was alone here.
Other tentacles battered at her head and shield when she was held at a distance. Too bulky to grasp her dagger, the shield was large enough for the tip of a tentacle to wind around and attempt to rip it from her arm, but that she could stab at, and she did so without mercy, covering herself with gobbets of gore and tainted blood before the abused limb pulled away.
The broodmother held her at a safe distance then, ceasing its onslaught and simply leering at her. Something seemed to be going on behind those taint-maddened eyes.
Asleena used the brief respite to wipe blood from her eyes, then readied herself once more. “What are you waiting for?” she grated. “Come on!”
There was a hideous bubbling sound, a mockery of laughter, then the tentacle moved. Asleena saw a brief blur of flesh and rock as she was wrenched around, then the pressure around her midsection was gone and she was hurtling straight for a jagged stone wall at breakneck speed.
It should have killed her.
The Lifeward flared…
**
…and winked out.
The network of green lines shattered, counteracting the harsh jolt of killing pain that tore through Zevran’s body. Impact with solid rock should have smashed his skull and broken half the bones in his body. He almost cried out, but Crow training took control, keeping him almost completely silent even though his mind had been convinced Death finally whispered his name and curled possessive fingers around his heart.
He shook phantom voices from his head and tried to roll onto his side, biting back a groan of agony. The spell might have saved his life, but it had not made him impervious to harm. He was bleeding, most of it from his ears and nose he realised, badly bruised, and would not have been at all surprised had a chirurgeon told him several internal organs had just been pulped.
Retaining enough presence of mind to tug at the rope bound to his arm and guide Sindel to his location, he lay still and quiet and looked around for immediate threats. He could not have landed far away from—
Asleena’s voice split the night, very close, savage and in terrible pain. Zevran was on his feet without a second thought, though his head spun as soon as he stood. He staggered sideways and bruised his knuckles when he thrust out a hand to brace himself against a rocky outcropping, misjudging the distance. Gripping the rope again he tugged more urgently, and there was a beating of wings as the hawk descended then changed form before touching ground.
Sindel gave the assassin a single glance through the gloom then touched his shoulder and whispered something. A blue glow suffused her hand and regenerative energies surged through Zevran’s body.
“Give it a moment,” she breathed, bringing her staff to hand. “I saw from above. There is light and a monster. That way.”
Zevran did not heed the part about waiting, setting off quickly in the direction indicated as he shouldered his pack and drew his blades. When his left foot pressed down on something that was not solid he jerked back and canted his sword to strike, but it was no darkspawn lying in wait or even a body. More a puddle or mound of…something…He ignored it and Sindel’s sharp intake of breath both, pressing onwards with greater speed as the noise of something ahead became more distinct.
The passage widened into a cavernous expanse, the floor awash with offal and afterbirth, dominated by a creature that no explanation of Leliana’s could have sufficiently described. When the bard had returned from the Deep Roads with Oghren, Alistair and Asleena, her usual flair for words had failed her upon reaching the part about the broodmother. None of the party that had faced the thing had wanted to fully explain it, though Oghren had gotten drunk enough at one point to say ‘breasts’, ‘tentacles’ and ‘Branka was sodding crazy’ by way of explanation, which Zevran had found amusing at the time.
He felt no inclination to laugh now.
The grotesque thing was reared back, its laughing attention fixed upon a lone human woman held within the grip of two tentacles. One of these encircled Asleena’s breastplate while the other gripped both of her legs in a maliciously gentle coil. The Grey Warden’s spine was arched, eyes wide and rolled back, lips parted in a soundless scream. The broodmother might not have even been trying to wrench the limbs from her body; just pressing upon a broken bone with enough force could render anyone completely helpless.
She had no weapon in her right hand, Zevran noted quickly, but Duncan’s shield was strapped to her left. She was covered in blood, but so too was the broodmother’s face and neck. She’d put up a fight.
“Take my sword,” he said, reversing it to offer the hilt to Sindel, who transferred her horrified gaze from the broodmother to him. “If that thing drops Asleena, get to her side and put this in her hands.”
“What will you do?” she hissed.
“Take the sword!” he snapped, and she obeyed. “Can you heal her?”
“I can’t repair her leg! I can do what I can, but—“
“Then do what you can.” He pulled out a second dagger, the twin of the first, another of the Thorns of the Dead Gods. “Stay hidden while I get its attention.”
She drew a breath, nodded and crouched down beside the rocky wall. “Mythral protect you, Andruil guide your blades.”
Zevran stepped lightly into the cavern and circled, avoiding the flesh-piled ground where he could, wary eyes alert. He wanted to move swiftly to spare Asleena further torment, but haste would see him snared if he acted too soon. When he was positioned directly in front of the broodmother’s bloated chest he gathered himself, flipped both daggers so that the blades pointed down, then sprinted across the floor and jumped, driving his weapons into the blubberous mass he launched himself upon. Without pause, barely heeding the surprised roar from above, the assassin pulled one blade free and drove it higher, then the other, again and again like a climber with rock-spikes might scale a troublesome cliff…
**
The pain receded. Her right leg still screamed agony, but it was nothing compared to the debilitating torture that had paralysed her moments ago. Healing energy seared through her body, as warm and welcome as sunlight, and for a couple of blissful seconds she lost herself completely in the sensation.
“Asleena!” a familiar Antivan voice roared.
Her head came up and she gasped suddenly at the distance between herself and the ground. The broodmother was still holding her aloft but its attention had been diverted from her for the moment, its other tentacles smacking down repeatedly at the head and back of a blond elf who was making a spirited attempt to hack its neck open with his daggers.
Zevran?
And…is that Sindel on the ground?
How the…?
The tentacle gripping her moved and she grabbed at it instinctively, heart leaping into her throat. She did not want to get thrown against a wall again, but the broodmother had other ideas. Instead of hurling her across the cavern, it drove her towards Zevran, coming in from the side to sweep him away.
“Look out!” she yelled and he heard just in time to avoid being hit. He released one dagger from the bloody furrow in the broodmother’s throat and dropped down lower, but maintained his hold on the blade buried in its collarbone. Then, with his free hand, he reached out and grabbed at Asleena’s as she hurtled past. Their fingers locked and the connection skewed the tentacle’s path. Momentum swung Asleena around, right up close to the broodmother’s bloodied neck, and battle-sense took over without her heart even skipping a beat. The flat edge of Duncan’s silverite shield lifted and plunged into the open wound, driven deep by the broodmother’s own strength, to the telling sound of tearing gristle.
Zevran’s grip tightened as the tentacle holding her stiffened and yanked in an automatic reflex that would have dashed her against the floor. His face tightened with strain but he did not let go…then a terrible shudder ran through the broodmother’s bulk and it listed to one side, the tentacles falling away to coil upon the floor.
Asleena, half-lying across the monster’s shoulder with her shield and left arm buried three quarters of the way through its neck, paused a moment to catch her breath and come to terms with the fact that she was somehow alive, then grinned down at Zevran with unabashed relief.
The assassin squeezed her hand and grinned back. “Royally tough to kill,” he said quietly.
Modifié par Shadow of Light Dragon, 04 mars 2010 - 10:39 .
#150
Posté 03 mars 2010 - 01:35
Freckles04
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- Members
- 809 messages
WOW! Great chapter! Please keep them coming. ::whispers:: Alistair soon? Please?
