Part 19 (2/2)

”You should have,” Gullik said as he looked down at Killeen. He spoke so softly that Dougal had to strain to hear him. ”I did not expect any of you to be so foolhardy as to join me. Least of all, her.”

”Stop this,” Riona said. ”We don't have time for it. The battle is sure to have drawn attention. The warbands that awoke the creature are still south of the Dragonbrand and may choose to resume the chase.”

”They would challenge a foe who slew this beast that terrified them so?” asked Gullik.

”Some charr are like carrion,” said Ember, ”only too happy to take on a foe when he is at his weakest.”

”Regardless,” Riona said, her face a mask, ”we need to move. Now.”

Gullik pointed at Killeen's body. ”She deserves a hero's funeral.” Despite the rain falling on her figure freely now, her skin was already starting to turn black around the edges, like the petals of a plucked flower. He became the bear, and in his ursine form shouldered the sharp-edged boulder-fist and rolled it off the sylvari. Then, as a norn once more, he knelt down and picked her crushed form up, cradling it in his arms. ”If nothing else, we will not leave her body here in this d.a.m.ned place.”

Gunshots rang overhead. Dougal glanced to the south to see three full warbands of charr starting to nose their way, cautiously but relentlessly, into the Dragonbrand. With Killeen gone, they had only five to face off against sixty-some charr warriors who were fresh and spoiling for a fight.

Gullik looked south, rage overtaking his face, and for a moment Dougal was afraid the norn was going to charge off to meet them in battle. Grimacing, Dougal patted the norn on the arm. ”I think we'd honor her sacrifice more if we lived.”

Gullik put his hand on Dougal's shoulder as they began following the others north through the rain. ”There's no glory in fighting so few charr anyway,” he muttered.

In the end they laid her to rest on the northern side of the Dragonbrand, beneath a cairn of rough stones covered with a thin coating of wet sod. All except Kranxx did the work, while the asura watched the Dragonbrand to the south through a set of lenses from his voluminous pack.

Dougal and Ember were laying the last of the uprooted sod over the stones when Kranxx came down from his perch.

”The charr patrols have turned back,” the asura said. ”I think they ran into something in the Dragonbrand that was related to the thing we fought.”

”They are not as foolish as I feared,” said Ember, standing back to look at their handiwork.

Dougal patted the sod into place and stood up. ”Were Killeen human, I would offer a prayer to the Six G.o.ds to guide her safely through the Mists.”

”The charr have no G.o.ds,” said Ember. ”But we are not stone, and were she a charr, we would praise her prowess and her bravery, and seek to measure up to it in our own lives.”

”The asura believe in an Eternal Alchemy,” said Kranxx, ”a great machine of which we are merely component parts. Parts wear out or break, but that doesn't make their pa.s.sing any less painful.”

Gullik let out a deep sigh and said, ”I met her in the forest of Caledon. I was hunting the great cats there, seeking their pelts, and several of them got the better of me. I was resting beneath one of their strange-shaped trees by the roadside, when she walked along. She asked me if I would like to stop bleeding. I told her I would, very much. She worked her greenish death-magic over my wounds and I regained enough of my life to accompany her to the next haven.

”We did not travel together long,” he continued. ”Yet, in that time she impressed me both with her disposition and her ability. She told me about her people and how they grew on trees and how it was important that they find out what their purpose was in the Awakened World. I told her about Bear and Raven and Snow Leopard and Wolf, and others of our spirits who were no more, like Owl. And she asked many questions, and a few days later we parted on friendly terms.

”I didn't see her again until that day in your room, Dougal. And she kept me from making a horrible error. The rest you know. She always was searching for her place in life, and always was curious about what happened at the end. For all our sakes, I think she found the former in this group, and hope she finds the latter in the Mists of the Afterworld.”

There was silence, the soft rain still falling around them. At last Riona said, ”The warbands are no longer pursuing, but without a doubt they will report our presence. We must move on.”

No one said anything in response, but one after another they pulled on their packs and started the climb into the rolling hills overlooking the Dragonbrand from the north. By the time they reached the crest of the hill, the rain had diminished to a light drizzle and the sun was coming out. Looking back, Dougal saw a rainbow along the edge of the Dragonbrand.

They made good time once they were back in untainted lands. Compared to the earth ruined by the Dragonbrand, the springiness of the ground here seemed to propel them forward. With some difficulty, Dougal turned his thoughts to the task ahead of them.

”We should not have to worry much about patrols here,” Ember said. ”The creatures bent by the Dragonbrand rarely leave it, and the charr trust the devastated land to protect their southern flank. There may be a few sentinels here and there keeping an eye on the inhabitants of the Dragonbrand, but nothing in the way of the continual patrols outside Ebonhawke.”

”A solid if flawed theory,” Kranxx said. ”One that I'm happy we can take advantage of.” He'd resumed his place upon Gullik's shoulders. The norn bore him as easily as ever, immune to any abuse the asura could heap on him, whether physical or verbal. Still, Gullik was mostly silent, his thoughts kept to himself.

They hiked steadily north and westward into the hills, stopping well before the sun kissed the far horizon. At length they came to an old human farm building, partially collapsed along its southern wall but still warm and dry along its northern half. From the detritus scattered about and the ashes in the fireplace, other travelers had used this place as well.

”We should be moving at night again,” said Ember, ”two, maybe three nights before we reach the outskirts of Ascalon City itself. We are going to come around through the Loreclaw Expanses on the southern edge of the Ascalon Basin; there are fewer patrols on the south side of the lake. The western edge of the lake may have more patrols, since that is a major artery for the charr military. We will try to avoid them and approach the city from the west.”

Dougal nodded, but no one seemed to be much in the mood to talk. Kranxx broke out some lumpy nutbread he had brought with him and pa.s.sed it out to have with their cold rations. It was sweet on the tongue and, if anything, made Dougal sadder.

”I've lived in Ebonhawke for years,” said the asura, ”but that was my first experience with the Dragonbrand. I hope I never have another.”

”The Elder Dragons have warped Tyria,” said Ember, picking out a walnut shard lodged between her teeth with a claw. ”If the ghosts of the past, the humans of Ebonhawke, and the Flame Legion were not enough, now Kralkatorrik has drawn this scar through our lands.”

”My people know of the power of dragons,” said the asura. ”The first dragon, Primordus, made his home in a great hub of magical power. We built our central transfer chamber, a cl.u.s.ter of powerful asura gates, atop that site. When the dragon's herald, which the dwarves called the Great Destroyer, woke years ago, it crippled our network and drove us to the surface. As mighty as we may seem now, it's just a pale shadow of our past.”

Gullik grunted. ”I know of what you speak, small one. The norn once ruled the north, until Jormag the Ice Dragon rose from his tomb. We fought him but were overmatched, and were driven from our lands. One of our greatest heroes, Aesgir, battled the Ice Dragon and, with the aid of the Spirits of the Wild, lived to tell the tale. More than that, he brought back the sole trophy we have of our battles against the creature: a single fang from its maw. That tooth is the heart of our settlement at Hoelbrak, and our great heroes test their might against it. For our people have agreed that when someone breaks Jormag's tooth, it will be a sign for our people to rise once more and defeat the Ice Dragon once and for all.”

”Kralkatorrik, Primordus, Jormag,” said Dougal, ”and Zhaitan, who rose in another place of power, from beneath Orr itself, and flooded Lion's Arch and now makes its lair in the heart of the City of the G.o.ds. And for all we know, there may be more of them. It puts the battles between the charr and humans into perspective.”

”All the more reason that we should succeed,” growled Ember softly, almost to herself. ”We all seem to be resting on the edge, and unless we deal with our individual challenges, the dragons will consume us all.”

Dougal nodded. Three hundred years ago humans ruled Tyria. Now, with the centaur raids, the bandits, the rise of the dragons, and the draining war with the charr, the humans have been driven back to a fraction of their lands. Dougal wondered if he was a member of a dying race, like the dwarves, fated to fade from the greater world.

”Do we want to approach the city during the night or the day?” Riona's question shattered Dougal's reverie.

”What?” He blinked. ”Oh. I would rather try it during the day. The ghosts are less active then.”

”But the charr patrols will be far more likely to spot us,” Ember pointed out. ”How did you manage it the last time?”

”Poorly,” said Dougal. ”We were more worried about the charr than the ghosts, and slipped past the patrols and into the city at midnight on a night with a full moon. It-it was a disaster.”

”But you, my friend, lived to tell the tale, to sing the saga of your friends and their deaths,” said Gullik, smiling wanly. ”And their lives well spent.”

Dougal shook his head. ”Don't romanticize it. There wasn't anything good about their deaths. We were stupid and we paid a price.”

”What happened?” Riona's voice was soft but insistent. ”We should know.”

Dougal pondered this for a moment and looked at the others. Ember nodded in agreement with Riona. Gullik was looking at him blankly, waiting. Even Kranxx had stopped chewing and sat there expectantly.

He'd put this off as long as he could. Dougal took a deep breath. ”I have not spoken of this before. The 'legend' of my surviving Ascalon City grew up over time, and while I've done nothing to stop it and even have profited from it, I've never told anyone what happened there. So please bear with me, because this is one story that I cannot make myself the hero of.”

Gullik opened his mouth to say something, but Ember silenced him with a jabbed elbow to the rib. Dougal continued.

”You know Riona and I were in the same unit at Ebonhawke. One of our friends, Dak, had found the old map in some library in Ebonhawke. It showed the old city itself, where the towers and reception chambers were and, most importantly, the royal treasury. We all memorized that map, in case it was lost.”

”You think the Claw is in the royal treasury?” said Ember.

”I do,” said Dougal, and stopped there, not elaborating. He was thinking of what had happened next, and at last decided to skip over the part where they chose to desert and left Riona behind to take the blame. Finally he said, ”Dak and I and some others thought we would become treasure hunters, and left Ebonhawke for Lion's Arch.” He looked at Riona and she nodded: she was not going to bring up the matter here, in front of everyone.

”We collected as much information as we could find on Ascalon City and then set off from Lion's Arch. Dak, Jervis, Marga, Vala, and myself. We were all close friends, and hired a group of locals for added support. The adventurers from Lion's Arch thought we were just going to see what we could pick up in Ascalon City. We didn't mention the royal treasury. We left Lion's Arch, crossed over the s.h.i.+verpeaks, and came down into Ascalon, where we spent most of our time trying to dodge charr patrols. They were very effective, and we lost most of our a.s.sociates before we even reached Ascalon City ...” He let his voice trail off, the images of the past rus.h.i.+ng up to meet him.

”What happened then?” asked Riona.