The key word, there, is "escape". They were planning to kill him and the person he was honorably determined to protect, and most likely not in some pleasing manner. Bear in mind, too, Michel only killed the ones who attacked him head-on, threatened him directly. What "carved through them" wasn't Michel but the demon they themselves had summoned and imprisoned, there. Like chaining a tiger in the center of your camp -- when it gets loose and comes after you, don't blame the tiger. They acted foolishly and paid the price.
I think what irks me most about the Dalish is what I encountered during Merril's story arc, which is so similar to what I saw in TME, as well. She was literally surrounded every single day by elves in desperate need -- of help, simple necessities, healing, guidance. Heck, she might have spent time teaching the Elven children in Kirkwall who the Elves had been, what they'd believed in, the gods they worshiped -- something! Instead, she shuts herself off inside her hovel, endlessly studying a shattered relic and talking to a demon about a world and a time that simply no longer exists. Until it ultimately destroyed her loved ones.
There's a point where you have to acknowledge, that the world's changed so dynamically you will never revert to what you were, so you have to embrace what you've become and what you might grow to be. The Dalish don't do that. And the Elven Inquisitor I'm determined to create in DAI is rather tired of hiding in the hills, rather than being proactive in moving her people into the future.