Hunger, Chapter 12 - Dragon Age 2

[rubypop]

Hunger
by rubypop
Chapter 12

Garbed in lyrium, Fenris traversed the pulsing throat. He fell headfirst through fleshy pathways illuminated only by the white-hot burn of his markings. From all around throbbed the muffled beating of a massive heart.

When he tumbled against resisting tissue, he clawed his way through, and ghosted, and burrowed deeper. He did not think about whether or not he would suffocate here, or become lost, or exhaust the energy required to maintain his gleaming aura. He merely fought on, focused, seeking her in this nightmare-place.

The walls of flesh pressed close, palpitating. He could feel the shiver of sensory nerves. He dragged himself through fluid and cilia. Deeper.

He heard voices.

He thought, at first, that he must be mistaken, confounded by the sheer heat and compressing space. But, yes, there were voices, distant and moaning, crying, begging. As though the soul of every poor wretch that the beast had devoured lay trapped here, as corporeal as shadows.

He remembered Ser Clerval. He remembered the empty cottages. He remembered the mountain of pieces and parts.

He emerged into a chamber lined with seams of jagged teeth. He remembered, from his glimpses in the Fade, the sensation of swallowing bones, many bones, and thought of these great pointed teeth grinding the bones to pulp. He saw, then, a fleshy mass hanging from above, and realized it was all skin and veins and hair, pulsating, protective. Pieces and parts.

He flickered to the mass and ripped, and tore, and shredded with his claws.

The chamber spasmed. A guttural roar echoed from seemingly far away, echoed from the throat that he had navigated. The voices wept and pled. He did not stop. With both hands he slashed and yanked errant flesh away, succumbing to a wild frenzy, until the shadows thrown by his markings withdrew from a sallow inert face, and pale lips, and dark hair.

He uttered her name.

Her eyes opened. Her brows drew together. She mouthed, and then said, "Fenris?"

He stripped away the imprisoning flesh. He flung his arms around her. He hugged her close.

The chamber spasmed again, and shook. The walls undulated in horrible waves. Fenris leapt, clutching Hawke, back the way he had come. Adrenaline urged him on, and he climbed. Hawke buried her face into his chest. His arm tightened around her.

The fleshy walls rebelled. Their contractions fought him, rippling back, forcing him down. Fenris realized that Hunger was swallowing them, to wrest them back into that toothed prison.

His markings, now, were searing him, lit for so long. As though hot knives followed along their patterns, slicing through every layer of skin. He raised a hand and it grew hotter, brighter. He plunged it deep, claws out, into the pulsating wall.

A retching shiver screamed through the walls. Fenris and Hawke swayed against a long, violent lurch. Another tremor flung them forward. They pitched and rolled along the undulation. Moving forward. Climbing higher.

Fenris enveloped Hawke in his arms. With a blinding burst of light he ignited. The heat scorched him, agonizing and total. Together they were flung through the cavern of the demon's mouth, between the yellow teeth, which snapped closed behind them, and they went sprawling on the ground, into the sweet air.

Hunger was roaring, screaming, writhing back.

Fenris cradled Hawke, unable to speak, to formulate any kind of conscious thought. The light from his markings died and with it the agonizing heat.

She was small against him, limp with exhaustion, peering through half-lidded eyes, shocked by the sight of him. He brushed the wet dark hair from her forehead.

"Never," he said. "I will never lose you again."

Tears ran freely down her cheeks.

#

Justice hurried along vesicular pathways, blindly following the fetid air, the breath of the cavern, and he glanced up at every drip of condensation, every clatter of loosened rock. He steeled himself for what he knew was to come, unafraid, and knowing still that he must face what awaited him alone.

I will die for her, he thought, as he flew along the echoing corridor. If it must come to that, I will die for her.

Some human fragment of himself was trembling with doubt, and angrily he quashed the notion, briefly bringing light to the jagged shadows.

If I must die, that human side whispered, what of my people? What of Darktown? What of the beggar-girl, kicked down and used and starving?

I will die for Marian.

What of the bed, from which she was taken?

Justice shed a current of light, gripping his staff.

I cannot fight the demon alone.

I will. There is no other choice.

Do I not have a choice?

No. You do not.

He flickered onward through the black caves.

#

"I will never lose you again."

Hawke shut her eyes, opened them again. She did not know where she was. She could not identify the howls of agony that were echoing throughout the cavern. She saw only Fenris, the tears in his eyes, the sticky peritoneal residue that covered them both. She vaguely remembered flesh, the monstrous pulse-beats that had surrounded her. She vaguely remembered that kernel of strength, and thoughts of Anders that had sustained her.

Fenris embraced her again. Shaking, she reached up and touched his face.

"Fenris," she repeated.

Her mind was slowly clearing. She saw, then, the demon that thrashed behind them. He caught sight of her, and his white eyes lit up, and he reached out with long barbed claws.

"Little thing," he said, his words strangled.

Fenris lifted her and stumbled. Hunger reared back and scrambled toward them, enormous and spiked and screaming, and like lightning his long arm lashed out, his great claws came around, and Fenris let out a horrible choking sound and collapsed.

Blood flecked the rock walls. Hawke sprawled from Fenris's arms, and she caught sight of ragged wounds, the ripped leather of his tunic. A small wooden totem fell from Fenris's pocket and skittered across the ground. With an intake of breath she recognized it: the tiny wooden horse, rudely-carved and stained with blood.

She flung herself upon Fenris and grabbed the figurine. She held it close.

"YOU." Hunger's eyes flashed, were blinding, his claws tense and splayed and razor sharp. "BELONG. TO. ME."

"Our contract is fulfilled!" Hawke said. "Leave me or kill me, I will never become a part of you!"

Hunger howled, and shook the walls.

"I will not lose myself," Hawke cried, "and all that I am!"

She clung to Fenris, and ran her hand over his wounds, sealing them with a prayer.

Hunger was descending over them, his jaws stretched wide with fury, his claws flexed and ready to separate them, to tear them apart, to shred them to nothing if necessary.

A great arcane projectile flooded the cavern with light. It smashed into Hunger's gaping mouth, sending him backward, to crash against the stalagmites.

Hawke wrenched around. Anders stood with his staff raised, heaving and dripping sweat, staring at them both.

She shouted his name, but his eyes snapped up, and Hunger was rising, the flesh of his mouth black and smoking, the teeth scorched, still intact. Anders whipped his staff to one side and fired again.

Hawke smoothed her hand over Fenris's face. "Fenris," she said urgently. "I need a dagger. Please."

He blinked several times. His eyes rolled to one side, and trembling he sat up. "There."

She turned. The body of a young woman draped across the ground like withered flowers. The hilt of a knife protruded from her red bodice. Lifelessly she stared up, at nothing either of them could see, or ever hoped to see.

Hawke crawled to the body and gripped the knife. She apologized silently and yanked the knife free. The blade was long and curved and sharp: a skinning knife. It would do. She wiped it on her robes.

Fenris staggered to her. Anders was shouting, feinting and skirting Hunger's claws. Fenris said, "I have to help him."

"Your sword -"

"They stripped it from me." He nodded to the body.

"We must bind him," Hawke said. She proffered the horse figurine. "It's the only way."

Fenris glanced askance. "But how -"

Hawke dropped the figurine to the ground. She raised the knife and brought its wicked edge down.

The wooden totem split. Its jagged halves splintered and fell away, revealing the gleam of a long brass pin.

"Maker," Fenris said.

"This charm is our only chance," Hawke said, palming it. "I pray it still holds the same power, after all of these years."

"Marian!" Anders shouted, and Hunger swatted him, and he collided with the wall, his surcoat falling open. He struggled to rise from the ground, as Hunger rounded on them.

"NOW I SHALL KILL THEM BOTH," he howled. "I WILL RIP THEM APART, BONE BY BONE, AND SUCK THE FLESH FROM THEM, AND GORGE MYSELF ON THEIR BLOOD."

"Fenris," Hawke uttered.

"I WILL SLIT THEIR BELLIES AND UNWIND THEIR GUTS."

"I need your help," she said.

"I WILL CRACK OPEN THEIR SKULLS AND SLURP UP THEIR EYES AND THEIR BRAINS, ALL WHILE THEY STILL LIVE."

"Anything," Fenris said.

She touched his throat. He placed a hand on hers, and realized she was tracing the scar there.

"We have a blood bond," she whispered. "I forged one, when I healed you in the sea cave. When I made this scar." She met his eyes. "It is the same bond that Hunger made with me, when he sealed the first scar in my wrist, when I was a child."

He searched her face.

"I need you to trust me," she said.

"AND YOU. WILL. BE. MINE."

"I trust you," Fenris said.

She embraced him. He clung to her. He pressed his cheek to hers, shutting his eyes fast. He thought of the small window in the roof, and its rose-colored light. He thought of her pale, scarred arm beside his on the staircase. He thought of Dragana questioning him in the garden, what he'd said, what it'd meant.

"There is great power," Hawke whispered, "in blood freshly spilled."

The edge of the blade met his throat, met hers, connecting the space between them.

"I love you," he said, and she drew the blade, cutting their throats.

They fell away from one another. Hawke heard Anders scream as though from some faraway place. The pulse of old maleficar magic thrummed in her veins, filling the space left by draining blood.

The blood danced in a frenzied mist. Scarlet gyres whirled between them. She spread her hands. She conducted. She stirred at the air. The crimson mist ribboned and swooped. It hurtled across the cave. It penetrated Hunger's flesh.

He shrieked.

The walls trembled. The cavern floor rocked beneath them.

Fleshy sinews and strings spilled from Hunger's nacreous hide. They lashed against the floor, around boulders, clung to reaching stalactites. Hawke stumbled forward. She touched her sliced throat. The pin flashed in her hand.

"MY LITTLE MAGE," Hunger screamed. His claws combed at the fleshy sinews, to no avail.

Hawke's chest heaved. Her vision was darkening. The black fleshy strings held fast, stretching as Hunger thrashed. Hawke collapsed at his feet. She glared up at him.

"I am not yours," she said, and pierced the strands with the pin.

The demon howled. His screams shook the cavern itself, and Hawke flung herself back, as rocks and boulders shook free of the ceiling and crashed down. She scrambled back to Fenris and shielded him, pressing her palm to his throat, and a palm to her own, whispering, as the cave threatened to bury them all.

Old magic scented the air. Hawke could feel it radiating from the pin. Old magic, borne from skilled hands somewhere deep in the Wilds, made to punish, to bind, and bind forever. She glanced back. Hunger yanked and tore at his bonds. They held fast. Rocks rained down around him. From behind him, Anders rose up, bleeding. He raised his staff like a beacon, and brought it back down. A long crack tore through the earth along the wall, across the ceiling, over Hunger's head. And he brought the ceiling down, caving in over the trapped beast.

Hawke squeezed her eyes shut, clinging to Fenris as the falling earth thundered around them. The crashing boulders blotted out Hunger's accusatory wails. The vibrating earth slowly grew still. After what could have easily been an eternity, all was quiet.

Hawke opened her eyes. She stared down at Fenris. He had grown pale and sickly-looking, from the loss of blood. His red eyes opened. They stared at one another. Neither noticed Anders as he shakily crossed the cavern to join them.

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