Hunger, Chapter 9 - Dragon Age 2
Hunger
by rubypop
Chapter 9
Anders trailed after Fenris as they tracked their demonic attackers. They followed a path of indiscriminate destruction: the shredded-bare backs of pines, the heads of kingcups and brush trampled flat, the residuum of partially-consumed and regurgitated creatures. At one point they discovered the hollows of a fox's den, silent, and redolent with spilled blood, where nothing remained except for telltale scratches and scrabblings in the dirt.
"They would have cleared the entire forest, had they lived," Fenris observed, and moved on.
It became very obvious to both of them, over time, that Fenris was the only one speaking. Neither of them addressed this. Anders wandered behind Fenris with downcast eyes. He could not prevent the invasion of the beggar-girl's memory. He could not shake that sense of altruistic ecstasy that had briefly eclipsed his despair, nor the sight of her haunted eyes, the sound of coins ringing against a tin cup. Guilt chewed at the edges of his mind, where thoughts of Hawke were too painful to scrutinize. He cursed himself, repeatedly.
For Fenris's part, the satisfaction of proving, to him, Anders's unequivocal hypocrisy had been short-lived. He found he could not delight in Hawke's betrayal. He continued on with a hunter's focus. He would exterminate the beast. He would find her. He would keep her safe.
For days they tracked and traced, and slept fitfully, until one evening they broke free of the forest and caught sight of thatched roofs just beyond the ridge of a limestone promontory.
#
Dragana faltered within the cavernous den. The cragged floor was hot beneath her feet. She toyed with her cane. He stood against the far wall with his back to her, just as she had last seen him, heaving slowly and deliberately. She curtsied and said, "My Lord."
He sucked in his breath and emitted a long, steady gust of air. The temperature rose.
"It is your Dragana," she said.
"I do not smell new blood," he rumbled. A tremor shook the chamber.
"My Lord, I am so sorry. I did not have time to bathe."
"You would risk my displeasure?"
"I'm sorry," she stammered.
His shoulders returned to their rhythmic rise and fall. He leaned forward, propping his forehead against the wall.
Dragana took a hesitant step. Sweat was beading her face, her lip, the bony knuckles of her hands. "My Lord still feels unwell?"
There came a soft growl from the walls, from the ceiling.
"I wish there were something I could do."
"What have you come here to say, that you would present yourself to me unwashed?"
"I just wanted to inform you - to tell you - that -" Her voice failed her. She tried again. "That Florian. He -"
A second growl, and Dragana leaned hard on her cane. She lowered her eyes with shame. His massive form shifted, just slightly, and she saw that he was touching his stomach with great delicacy.
"It is her, isn't it?" she said softly.
He growled again.
She pressed on: "Oh, I hate how she makes you suffer. It fills my heart with distress to see you this way. She is hateful, a hateful thing."
"You are testing my patience."
"Please, forgive me. Nevermind silly old Florian." She flung out her hand, as though disposing of the very idea. "My Lord, your envoy has not returned. It has been several days."
"Have your butcher send out more, then."
"My Lord. Florian says there are not enough -"
"You do not listen to the butcher. You listen to me."
"Such is the truth, my Lord."
He sighed, breathed in, sighed again. His great fingers curled into a fist against his stomach. "I cannot sense them in the Fade," he said. "They have all been dispatched. A grave disappointment."
Dragana chewed her lip.
"No matter. You will meet them, then."
"I, my Lord?"
"Yes. I leave this to you and your butcher. Ensure they come nowhere near this place. Or I shall be very displeased."
She nodded vigorously. "Yes, my Lord. Of course. I will not disappoint you. I will make you so very happy."
He groaned then, faintly, and sagged against the wall. She chanced a step.
"My Lord? A gentle touch, if I may?"
She crossed the chamber without awaiting an answer, and laid a hand against his arm, hoping for a kiss, an acquiescing gesture, some sign of his former tenderness. No sooner had she brushed the torrid flesh than he rounded on her with an echoing bellow, and she leapt back, her heart leaping similarly in her chest.
"LEAVE ME," he snarled, and she fled to the exit, his deafening fury ringing in her ears.
#
Fenris and Anders skirted the promontory with great caution. It was a vast, sheer cliff of bone-colored rock, within which the dusky sunlight revealed gleaming crimson seams. The village itself crowded along the knurled steps of the cliffside. They came to a gate of weathered stone and stood observing it from a distance.
A breeze ruffled through them, and Anders wrinkled his nose. "Maker, what is that stench?"
"It smells of corpses. Old ones."
"Pleasant." Anders pointed to the gate. "Ah. Do you see those?"
Fenris squinted. Swaying against the columns of the gate were large, fleshy blossoms, at least half a dozen of them. Each had five russet-colored lobes - petals - dappled with white spots. Bloated flies dodged and dove around them.
"Flowers?" Fenris said.
"Rafflesias," Anders said. "A jungle plant, known in the Donarks as the Carrion Flower. At least, according to the books they allowed us in the Circle. The odor attracts botflies. Rafflesias are - a parasitic species." He frowned. "Strange to see them here in the Free Marches."
"Quite." Fenris scanned the wall that surrounded the village. "The question is, are they a decoration or a warning?"
"The gate is open. It is possible the village has nothing to do with Hunger."
"I sincerely doubt it." Fenris huffed a short sigh. "Well. Let us see what we find."
They approached the gate and crossed into the village proper. The terrain was a notched series of limestone shelves dense with stone cottages, the roofs woven with lichen and bulrush. Stray vines crept across the gravel paths, sporting more specimens of the curious flowers. All was quiet save for a lone lamplighter, a young man precariously standing on tiptoe to light a high torch. Perhaps a third of the houses were lit from within, and the rest stood dark and silent.
"You there," Anders called, and the lamplighter glanced about, missing the torch completely. He lowered his wick.
"Me, serah?"
"Yes. Tell us, whereabouts is the inn?"
"You'd have us sleep here?" Fenris muttered between gritted teeth.
"The inn?" The lamplighter removed his cap and wiped his forehead. "I'd say it shut down close to two years ago. There's a pub, though. Might have a couple spare rooms."
"I see. Not many visitors, then?"
"Not many travelers in this corner of the Marches, serah."
"Strange flora you have here," Fenris said.
The lamplighter glanced down at a cluster of rafflesias that clung to a cottage wall. "Ah, you mean these? Didn't used to get them. We had a strange season a few years back, awful strange, when the village Lord died."
"Did he?"
"Yes, serah. Lord Croceum. Fine man. Loved his daughter more than anything. The place was lousy with crocuses back then, red as rouge-cakes. Quite sad when he died. Broke everyone's heart. These ugly plants sprouted up not long after. Now the entire cliffside stinks like a charnel house."
"How," Anders said slowly, "many years ago, did you say?"
"Not sure. Three, maybe four."
Anders turned to Fenris. "Well. A drink certainly seems to be in order, don't you agree?" He nodded to the lamplighter. "Thank you, serah. And where is that pub?"
He pointed with his wick, the flame streaking along the end of the long pole. "Just up that way along the cliff. Sign says 'The Adder's Root.'"
They thanked him and hurried off, and he stretched back up toward the torch. It flared to life as they passed, throwing their shadows against the darkened cottages.
"You heard him?" Anders said under his breath.
"Of course I heard him."
"Four years ago. That was when Hawke arrived in Kirkwall, was it not? Strange coincidence, that."
"More than coincidence."
They approached a squat public house that ran to the very edge of the cliff. It indeed bore a sign, "The Adder's Root," in elaborate script over a carving of a strange flower, all pointed spadix and spathe, like the head of a spear. They paused before the door and glanced at one another briefly, and then they went in.
A low fire crackled and spit in a central hearth. This and a small glassed lamp at the bar provided the only illumination, which seemed to lessen as the sun sank lower. Tables and chairs stood empty over a rust-colored throw rug. A single patron slumped at the bar, downing a flagon of ale, and a barmaid banged trays in the washbasin.
Anders lingered, and Fenris went to the bar and sat. The barmaid turned to him, her expression weary and unchanging.
"Dalish?" she said pointedly, as she looked him up and down.
"Thirsty." He tapped a trio of coppers against the counter. The other patron drank deeply from his flagon and ignored them.
She held out her hand. The lines in her palm were etched black with dirt. He dropped the coins onto it.
"Sun Blonde Vintage."
"Don't got it." She closed her fingers around the coins. "Sack mead, ale, or nothing."
"Fine. Sack, then."
"Never seen Dalish tattoos like that," she said, pocketing the coins, and she bustled away with a glass as the lone patron raised his head and finally noticed them.
Anders crossed the room. He did not see how the stranger's eyes alighted on Fenris, how they followed the silver paths along his arms to his throat, to his face. Fenris watched the barmaid vanish into the larder and, feeling eyes upon him like prodding hands, returned the stranger's gaze with a scowl.
"Yes?" he said impatiently.
The man smiled. His face, well-cut and boyish, bore a shade of noblesse that was absent from the few locals they'd seen. His nose was long and avian beneath sharp eyes. A crop of black curls drifted about his face.
"Not Dalish, those markings," he said. Traces of a foreign accent gilded his words.
"No," Fenris said.
"Magnificent work, regardless."
Fenris merely glowered at the larder door, and the barmaid returned, setting an egg-shaped glass of mead in front of him. He seized it and drank. The wine flashed gold in the firelight.
The stranger looked to Anders. "Traveling?" he said lightly.
"Passing through," Anders said, shaking his head at the barmaid when she approached him expectantly.
"I see. You do not look like a Marcher. A refugee, then, like so many others? From the Blight?"
Anders nodded. "Very good," he said. "And your accent?"
The man's smile widened, and he propped his jaw against his fist, where golden rings shimmered. "My father hails from Orlais," he said. "I myself am from Ostwick. Florian." He nodded. "Of the Lefebvre family."
"Pleasure," Anders said, as Fenris threw back his head and drained his glass. "So you are traveling as well?"
"Alas, no. I make a humble living here, as a butcher. 'Tis an enlightening way of life."
"I see. Have you lived here long?"
"Not long."
"Before, perchance, the death of Lord, ah -"
The black eyebrows lifted. "Croceum? Yes."
"Right. We noticed some strange flowers at the village gate, and strewn all about. A villager told us that they have not always been here."
"Ah. Yes. They are a favorite of the Lady Croceum."
"His wife?"
The butcher shook his head. "Daughter. A lovely eccentric. One of the flowers was given to her as a gift by an esteemed visitor. They've since rather taken to the place."
Anders scratched his beard thoughtfully. "I didn't think such plants would flourish in a mountain clime."
"Ah, but the air here has grown quite warm over the years. Some say it is the final breath of the late Lord, gone out of him."
"Poetic," Fenris said, waving to the barmaid, who took his glass back to the larder.
Florian's gaze alighted on him once more. "And you," he said. "From where have you traveled?"
"It does not matter where I am from," Fenris said.
"I see. Your companion here," and he nodded to Anders, "has quite a telltale look about him. Such light hair, as in the arid lands. You are from the Anderfels?"
Anders blinked. "Quite impressive."
Florian laughed. "I am well-traveled, myself. Your name?"
"Anders."
"Anders of the Anderfels." And he laughed again, pleasantly, each note like music. "Very good, very good. You are a delight, serah."
Anders smiled, despite himself. Fenris reached for his second glass of mead.
"We were hoping to find a room for the night," Anders said.
"But the inn, you see, has closed."
"So we were told."
"Allow me to help." Florian drew from his breast pocket a silver coin and pushed it toward the barmaid. "When I arrived at the Root tonight, I was in quite a poor mood. You have lifted my spirits considerably. I personally serve the Lady Croceum. Her house will have plenty of room for you tonight."
Fenris looked at Anders sharply, who said, "Oh, my. That's unnecessary -"
"It is my pleasure." Florian pushed back his stool and offered his hand. "I will not hear otherwise. Come and meet Lady Croceum. I am sure you have many interesting stories she would love to hear. I imagine she would adore telling you more about the flowers, as well."
Anders smiled uncertainly and grasped his hand. "Well," he said, "how could we refuse?"
"You cannot." Florian's lips pulled back, just slightly, from his perfect teeth.
#
Florian escorted them from the Adder's Root to a flower-riddled path ascending the cliffside. The sun had long vanished, and the pair of moons lit the limestone with a subtle glitter. Fenris and Anders exchanged meaningful glances as they followed the lean, boyish butcher: Fenris glared, at which Anders helplessly lifted his eyebrows, prompting Fenris to nod at the way ahead, where a stately, if modestly-sized, manor awaited them. Anders saw then the rafflesias strung in the door frame, numerous and lurid and reeking, like fleshy tumors.
An elven servant opened the door for them, and for a moment he appeared startled when he saw Fenris, though he snapped to attention as Florian spoke.
"Grasin, please alert the Lady Croceum that she will have guests tonight. Ser Anders of the Anderfels," he said with a grin, "and his traveling companion, a reticent elf etched in marvelous silver."
"Of course, messere."
"And add two place settings to the table. I am sure that our guests are quite hungry."
"Yes, messere."
His stare lingered on Fenris and Anders, and he was gone.
"Please, come in." Florian led them through a foyer furnished in glossy dark woods and precisely-cut stone. Fenris glanced around, acutely aware of the silence in this place: no other servants seemed to be about. They next passed through a drawing room that smelled strongly of fresh varnish, its windows draped in heavy velvet, and from there they entered a dining room, in which a long table was set for two.
"Take your seats," Florian said. "Dinner shall be served very soon, and then you will be free to freshen up and rest. I shall go fetch the Lady. Grasin will return with your tableware."
He waited first for them to sit down, and left, leaving the doors to the drawing room open, so that the odor of varnish lingered.
"Quite eager to have us, that one," Fenris remarked.
"We'll see what the Lady of the village has to say," Anders said. "Considering the oddities that have occurred here since Hunger followed Marian from Ferelden . . ."
"Suppose they slit our throats while we sleep?"
"Why would they? Ser Lefebvre seems friendly enough."
"But this woman, this 'lovely eccentric' . . ."
A voice sang out then: "Ah, guests! Wonderful, wonderful!"
They rose from their seats. A young woman, younger than they expected, skipped through the drawing room and curtsied to them extravagantly. She wore a poppy-colored dress with flowing skirts and a generous bustle. The red of her hair nearly matched the dress, blanching a youthful, freckled face. Her feet, beneath a lacy hem, were petite and bare. Anders bowed in return. Fenris briefly nodded his head.
"So good to meet you." She flounced up to Fenris and, much to his surprise, took both of his hands and kissed them. She smiled up at him. "I am Lady Dragana Croceum."
"A pleasure," he stammered.
"What fearsome claws!" she cried, tapping the points of his fingers.
Florian entered the room then, followed by Grasin, who carried two sets of plates and cutlery.
"You shall have to remove them before dinner," Florian remarked.
"Nonsense, poppycock," Dragana said. "They are beautiful. Though, even more beautiful . . ." And she turned his hands over to admire his palms. ". . . are these strange and shimmery tattoos. You are quite a sight, lovely stranger."
"Now, Lady Croceum. You're embarrassing him. And again you have forgotten your cane."
"Hush, Florian." She laughed, light and brassy, and squeezed Fenris's hands. She released him and hopped into a chair, at which Grasin was laying a fine bone plate. "Everyone sit, please sit. Grasin, fetch the wine, will you?"
They sat. Grasin hurried from the room, and returned moments later with a decanter of jewel-red wine, which he emptied skillfully into their glasses. Dragana stood and raised her glass.
"To our guests," she announced, "weary travelers, please make yourselves at home. I do hope you find our hospitality acceptable."
"Here, here," Florian said, and Fenris and Anders nodded their thanks, and they drank.
Anders sipped his wine politely. Fenris waited an imperceptible second, until he'd seen the throbbing of his hosts' throats, and he downed his glass with a single gulp.
"My, my," Dragana said. "So glad to see you enjoy the wine."
He said nothing, and Anders hurriedly supplied, "We thank you for the generosity. It is undeserved."
Grasin returned with a great platter, upon which he balanced glazed and steaming meats, dishes of soup, and a basket heaped with bread. He lowered it to the table with little effort, though it must have been immensely heavy, and began to serve them all. He caught Fenris's eye as he leaned over Dragana's plate, and held it, and hastily returned to his work, as Fenris wrinkled his brow.
"Florian says you are interested in the rafflesias," Dragana chirped between swallows of wine.
"Ah. Yes. Quite unusual in this part of Thedas, I understand?" Anders said.
Grasin circled the table and distributed cuts of meat onto Fenris's plate.
"'Tis absolutely a rarity, in the Free Marches," Dragana said. "I am fortunate to have received one. I planted it in my garden, and it began to grow all over, happy as can be."
Grasin bent to one side, presumably to adjust a porringer of soup next to Fenris's plate, and whispered, "Do not eat the food."
"The, ah, scent does not bother you?" Anders said.
Grasin bowed himself out. Fenris did not turn his head.
Dragana gave an enchanting smile. "My sense of smell is rather lacking," she said. "I am often ill, you see."
"The Lady is delicate," Florian said.
"I see. My apologies for calling attention."
"Not at all, not at all." She plucked a roll of bread and licked up a bead of honey. "I do not mind sharing. Please, feel welcome to ask what you wish."
She bit into the roll, and Florian ladled soup into his mouth. Fenris glanced subtly at his dishes. Bands of coarse, treacly sauce coated the strips of pink meat. Stewed bones and offal steeped in liver-colored broth. Anders lifted his knife and fork. Fenris reached beneath the table and jabbed him, gently but firmly, with a single claw. Anders jumped, but their hosts seemed not to notice.
"Ser Lefebvre has told us that he is from Ostwick," Fenris said, perhaps too loudly. "What brought you here, to this place?"
"Oh, we were betrothed," Dragana said airily. She giggled again.
Fenris raised his eyebrows. "Were you?"
"Yes," Florian said, taking a considerable draught of wine.
"May I ask, then, since I am welcome to," Fenris said, as Anders shot him an irritated look, "why you are not married?"
"My father bankrupted our estate," Dragana said. She sawed a cutlet of meat. "Florian's daddy was not happy."
"A banker," Florian explained.
"But Florian stayed behind. Such a sweetheart."
"And so your father was still alive then?" Fenris said.
"Briefly," Dragana said.
"Erm," said Anders.
"He wandered off into the mountains," Florian remarked. "Not for the first time. He was a frequent depressive. He likely flung himself from the cliffs."
"I see." Anders lifted his wine glass and lowered it again.
Dragana braced both hands against the tabletop and pushed herself up. She stared pointedly at their plates. "Why, you haven't touched a morsel," she said.
Anders glanced, far too obviously, at Fenris.
"Eat, please." Dragana smiled. "Both of you."
"Alas, our journey this day has been long, exceedingly long," Fenris said. "We are utterly fatigued."
"Utterly," Anders said quickly.
"Oh, but it is so early."
"We traveled through the night," Anders said.
"A pity." She teased, "Perhaps you should not have drunk all of that wine so quickly, Ser Silver Elf. It has made you sleepy, and is robbing me of your company."
"My deepest apologies," Fenris said. He rose to his feet. "I do not wish to appear ungrateful."
Anders and Florian rose as well. Dragana remained seated.
"Promise you will dine with me again," she said, pointedly, to Fenris, "before you leave."
"I would not refuse," Fenris said, giving a short bow.
"We thank you," Anders added.
"Well. Florian." Dragana waved her little hand. "Though it pains me, please show our guests to their rooms. It is as they wish."
Florian went to the door. "Come, gentlemen."
They followed. Fenris glanced, momentarily, back. Dragana was smiling at him. She gave a little wave, and he turned away, a chill climbing with icy fingers up his spine.