Scene: The Deep Roads Who: Rhocanth, Lythe, Signy Where: The Deep Roads, then the Surface When: Present, just before Alistair arrives in Orzammar Summary: Rhocanth is wandering in the Deep Roads, lost, when he meets a troop of Legionnaires. They find their way to the surface and collect more companions before meeting the Grey Wardens. Rating: T? Probably violence against darkspawn.
With a click and a spark, a dingy orange flicker lit the cavern. It barely threw out enough light to illuminate the gloom in front of the lad's face. He sat within the dim circle, huddled against the weight of his cool iron shield, and shivered. His teeth clattered against one another, skin feeling loose and claylike, dry tongue running over his gums. If he breathed out he thought he might puff dust. His bones felt heavy.
A pair of leather gloves were neatly crossed before him, and as they burned away they began to let off an acrid stench. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to light them after all, but he was freezing cold and covered in slime and blood, clothes soaked through.
His eyes slowly drifted shut, closing out the burn, and a peace overtook--NO. He snapped back into alertness, jerking hard and rattling his shield.
"Agh!" he cried out to himself, gasping in pain. The movement reminded him of the dull throb in his shoulder. He tried not to look at it, but knew very well what was there. A cruelly barbed darkspawn arrow stuck through his flesh, just above his collarbone on his shield arm. He'd known better than to go tearing it out and risk perishing right there from blood loss. That, and he didn't particularly want to see the hole or the torrent that would follow.
Rhocanth Garal had been in exile for... he didn't know. Judging by how many times his habitual body had rested, it had probably been four days. It was the morning of the fifth. Right about now, his family was probably sitting down to breakfast. Mother was probably pouring a beautiful apple preserve from her favorite surfacer merchant over a plate of nug cakes. It'd come out like liquid gold, pooling in the cracks between cakes...
Rhocanth coughed, feeling it hitch in his ribs and rip till they were sore. He had to eat something soon or else he would go no further. At times he had seen bloated, fleshy corpses of darkspawn lying about, and taken a number of kills himself, but the stories of their vile poison had warded him away from eating or drinking anything he found. Instead, he had simply walked. Keep walking, sword and sword arm dragging, trying to take routes to higher elevation wherever he could, stick to the shadows. Eventually something must lead to the surface. Mustn't it...?
There was no other choice. He would find something to eat now, anything at all, and press on. He'd promised his mother, his beautiful, gentle mother, that he would make it. That he would send her a poem about his life on the surface through courier. She would rest her head every night full of the tales he told her, a secret just between them. Exile did not have to mean that he was lost forever.
Rhocanth unbuckled his belt and tugged it off his hips, looking at it a moment. It was made of leather, and the inside was relatively clean. He could stow the gold buckle to sell later and make himself a few coin. Without another thought, or else he might lose his nerve, he stuck the end of the belt in his mouth and tore his teeth through it. A mouthful of bitter hide came off and he gnashed at it, feeling bits of thread on the insides of his cheeks and spitting them out into the fire. The taste was sickening, the texture rough and unforgivingly scratchy on his throat, but he swallowed and chewed, swallowed and chewed, until he had gotten down three inches. He could take no more, and wadded it up for later. Time was of the essence now. It was time to move on. He bent and sucked in a breath to blow out the fire on the gloves.
"Brllaghash!"
A howl broke the deathly silence. Rhocanth stumbled to his feet, eyes wild. He breathed heavily, craning his head this way and that to locate the noise. There was no time to put out the fire now. He would need to see to combat the darkspawn. There, they definitely had the advantage.
Eight genlocks trundled in from a narrow tunnel, waving their sloppy blades. Rhocanth gasped at them, backing toward the wall instinctively. He could not defeat eight darkspawn on his own.
So here is how it would end?
No, he had no choice. He gripped his sword tightly, arm throbbing as his shield dangled from it, and turned on heel. He ran at a breakneck speed, fueled by adrenaline, and as he went he heaved a desperate prayer.
"Ancestors forgive me for my mistakes. Please don't cast me away now. Let me feel the Stone's embrace--ah!"
His lost his balance, crunching sounds coming from beneath his feet. Arms swung regardless of the pain and he stumbled back, realizing that what he had almost done was jumped himself off a cliff in the dark. The sounds of the darkspawn clanging through the halls he had just come through were close behind. He could hear their slobbering tongues lapping at the air, loud sniffs and coughs, angry iron banging on the stone as if to call him back by it. Rhocanth slipped towards a corner and hunkered down, holding his shield over himself like a turtle hiding within its shell. Please, ancestors, make them go away!