It was the noise that brought him to a sliding halt, a bone-rattling thrum that rose from the rocks beneath the soles of his boots and vibrated like the shivering of the earth itself. He had never heard anything like it before, but that didn't stop the instinctual revulsion that crawled up his spine and curled around his gut at the sound, a fear and loathing borne of the basest desire for self-preservation. The shudder that ripped through him lowered the tip of his sword, slumped his shoulders until he fought back against the despair the sound raised. Cormac had no idea what that sound meant or was, but it couldn't be good for any of them.
The yawning crack that had spawned the knot of genlock earlier was suddenly alive with motion, an eerily silent tangle of limbs and blades as more darkspawn bubbled out and the humming died away. It was hard to say how many exactly there was, more than previously, and this clump had the occasional hurlock strewn through it as well, their hideous bald heads towering above the genlock rabble at their feet and their mouths stretched into a grim rictus of glee. Thankfully none of them clutched a staff like the hurlock that had emerged earlier, these were all just soldiers, but the formidable show of force had Cormac swallowing back the bitter lump of his own mortality. Their survival had just became less than a sure thing.
All this took mere seconds, far less time than it felt had passed, and Cormac gritted his teeth as the darkspawn spread out, ranging themselves between he and Ordhan and the Hurlock mage. Hisses and roars rose from their rancid maws in a wave of hatred, swords and axes brandished with a rattle of steel as the darkspawn radiated defiance. A quick glance to his side showed Ordhan readying himself, a grim resolution to the steady stance he took that spoke volumes to Cormac, and his own face split in a grim snarl. They might not see the morning...but by the Maker, they were taking as many of these darkspawn bastards with them as they could.
Cormac cast a frantic eye towards the hurlock mage, seeking Shartan's dark form. There was no hound, and the hurlock had its staff securely clutched in one bony hand again, the gnarled wood waving in the air as the hurlock muttered an incantation of some kind. It wasn't until the spell fired, a flash of light in the dark night, that Cormac saw Shartan's body seize and crumple, falling limply into a puddle of mottled fur against the stones at the hurlock's feet.
The hound might have been dead, or it might have been merely unconscious. As the mage raised its staff again, the tip pointed at Shartan's still body and its free hand waving as it cast another spell, something cracked deep within Cormac. The dam that held his anger at bay crumbled like so much wet plaster, and rather than fear the red wave that loomed over him Cormac welcomed it, bathed in it and drank it in, letting the rage fill him to bursting. It stretched his limbs, wore his body like a suit of skin, and cackled with a mad glee at the freedom he had awarded it. With a wordless scream of fury he threw himself into the wall of genlock and hurlocks that separated him from Shartan, his vision crimson and blind, the white heat of his wrath bent into the weapon of the berserker.
He could scarcely see, the rage riding him like a horse, using his limbs and sword with little conscious effort from himself. He had the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut, to squint his eyes against the black rain of blood that flew from the tip of his sword, ebon droplets that scattered with every swing. Limbs fell at his feet, sword-hands still twitching around the hilts of blades, heads still blinking with surprise at having been removed from their shoulders. With the reckless fury of a juggernaut Cormac cut a gruesome swath through the group, heedless of anything else beyond the burning need to reach Shartan's side. Darkspawn parted and flowed around him, some heading off towards Ordhan, and Cormac didn't even blink at their passing. Ordhan could handle himself, and the rage had little care for anything other than its own unquenchable thirst for blood. It howled with delight, gibbering inside his head at the corpses that lay behind them, genlocks and hurlocks in so many pieces.