Hawke just shakes her head fondly at Merrill, and leads the group away.

"Off to kill more darkspawn, then. It's probably for the best, because I'm fairly certain that spider is not supposed to smell appetizing."

Of course, they do run into more darkspawn, which is sort of a given at this point given that they're on their home turf, and mid-battle, Hawke gets a strange sort of glee in punting a skinnier looking fellow off of the cliff-side.