Guild Wars_ Ghosts Of Ascalon Part 17

"And yet he knew," said Riona. "If Clagg knew where Dougal was, what else did he know about the Vigil safe house?"

"Yeah," Dougal said. "And did he get to Ebonhawke before us?"

"Asura come through the gate all the time," said Kranxx. "None of them were named Clagg, but that means nothing. He could have walked in right under my nose."

"All this is meaningless now," said Ember. "a.s.suming that this asura was hunting you, we probably lost him back in Ebonhawke. I would like to see him follow us through those sewers and down that cliff."

"The sewers," said Riona. "We met the gate guards there as well."

"I'm aware of that," said Kranxx. "It is not outside the realm of possibility, though it would require more initiative than I've seen from most Ebonhawkers. Present company and all that." He waved at Dougal and Riona. "But add that to the fact that a charr patrol was just waiting for us at the bottom of that waterfall. We just dropped into their laps."

"But none of them seemed to know exactly what our merry band is up to," said Dougal. "Neither the Vanguard nor the warband."

"It is possible," said Riona, "that someone knows something is going on but is not sure what it is. There are those who would be opposed to any cooperation between charr and human, regardless of purpose."

"Or who merely don't like not knowing," said Kranxx.

A silence descended on the group, broken only by Gullik's deep yawn. "Right," said Dougal. "Now that we've pounded this subject flat, let's get some rest. I'll stand watch for the first few hours."

"Not alone," said Ember.

"I'll stay up," said Killeen. "Kranxx has been up since we met him and probably needs a rest."

"That's the smartest thing I've heard since I last opened my mouth," said Kranxx, lying down and using his lumpy pack as a pillow. He dropped his hat over his face and was asleep in an instant.

"I could use a rest as well," said Riona. She leaned over Dougal and softly whispered, "Thanks." Then she found a comfortable spot, not too far from where Ember curled up on herself, and was soon breathing deeply herself.

Dougal looked at Riona and wondered how long this calm would last before their next storm. Probably until he did something she didn't like, he thought.

He looked near the entrance to their small oasis and Killeen was there, cross-legged in the sun and perfectly still. She could be asleep, or dead, for all her outward appearance showed. He walked over and saw that although her eyes were open, her eyelids did not move. She did not blink, and Dougal wondered if the sylvari did that just to rea.s.sure other races.

Dougal cleared his throat and Killeen closed her eyes, then opened them again. Suddenly they were luminous and full of life once more. "Is there a problem, Dougal Keane ?" she said. "You think me a spy?"

"No," said Dougal, "but I do want to talk to you about what you did back there."

"With the guard. Wynne." She dropped her chin to her chest in a very human impersonation of a pout. "I meant no harm. It was the same thing that I did before, beneath Lion's Arch, with that skeleton. And it served the same purpose: to set off a trap so we would not suffer from it. But as a result, now Crusader Riona is irritated at me." She looked at him with her luminous eyes. "As, I suspect, you are."

"Not irritated," said Dougal, "disturbed. Necromancers among the humans have been considered rather unsettling for centuries, even though they work in magic like elementalists, mesmers, and other pract.i.tioners."

"Yet, among my people it is just a type of magic," said Killeen, "no different than divination or golemancy or any of the strange mathematical offshoots that the asura practice."

"I think that's part of it," said Dougal. "The asura look strange, so they aren't really judged the same way. You look a bit more like us, and therefore ..." He let his voice trail off, unsure where to go next.

"When we act differently, it reminds you how separate we really are as a people," she said.

"Pretty much," said Dougal. "In the future, I want you to think about how others will react to what you do."

"So you're saying," said Killeen, "you don't don't want me to turn you into a zombie once you die." want me to turn you into a zombie once you die."

"I think the others would be disturbed by that," said Dougal. "And you shouldn't turn any of them into the undead, either."

"Not even Ember?" said Killeen, her words belied by her smile.

"Not even Ember," said Dougal.

"If you wish," said Killeen, and turned back to watch the entrance niche to the valley.

"Good," said Dougal, and when Killeen did not add anything, he walked a couple paces away and added, "Good."

He found his own spot, in the shade, from which to watch both Killeen and the entrance as well as the others. It was as close to tranquility as he could hope to find, here beyond the walls of Ebonhawke, on the verge of enemy territory.

He shook his head. Gullik was right: the differences of this group could tear it apart. Ember was loyal to the Ash Legion, known for their secretive ways. Riona was both warm and cold to him by turn, and probably was going through all the same conflicted feelings he felt. Killeen was sometimes brilliant, sometimes out of step with everyone else. He knew nothing about Kranxx other than he had just gotten them out of a sealed city.

And Gullik himself seemed much deeper than his b.u.mpkin norn exterior appeared. Was there more going on with him as well?

Dougal let out a deep sigh and wondered how they would even reach Ascalon City, much less find the Claw. Even if it was where he thought it was.

He did not mean to fall asleep in the warm afternoon shade, but Killeen was suddenly there, touching him on the shoulder.

"I thought I should wake you first," she said. "I didn't want the others to know you drifted off."

Dougal stood up and yawned and checked the sun. The shadows of the valley wall were just touching the far side of the vale, but it would be several hours before it was dark enough to move. Stretching, he stumbled off to wake Riona and Ember and then get himself some guiltless sleep.

Keep moving!" Ember growled the words through her fangs as she forged through the darkness of the mountainside and into the vast valley of Ascalon below. "If one of those patrols catches sight of us, we're finished." The moon was filling out now, and even behind its shroud of pallid clouds, its light made travel easy.

The charr led the way through the shattered landscape, and Dougal chased right after her, with Riona nipping at his heels. Killeen came next, moving her shorter legs faster just so she could keep up. In the rear, Gullik had given up trying to hustle the even shorter Kranxx along and had scooped up the asura and set him to ride on the norn's broad shoulders.

"Wolf's teeth!" said Gullik, a little too loud. "We should turn this hunt around and kill them all instead!"

"Shus.h.!.+" Riona said. "They can find us as easily by sound as sight."

"Bring them on!" Gullik said, louder than ever. "I will bathe in their blood!"

Kranxx rapped the norn in the ear. "This is simple math," Kranxx said. "There are six of us. Each warband has up to twenty members. Ember? How many warbands are there in southern Ascalon?"

The charr answered without looking back. "The Iron Legion has centered here since being charged with the siege of Ebonhawke. They and the Blood Legion both have responsibility for the patrols. Count in some Ash Legion detachments as scouts. Probably hundreds of warbands roam the region."

"Right. That makes for thousands of charr wandering these lands. What happens when one of them finds us?"

"And they say the asura are as smart as Raven!" Gullik laughed. "We kill them, of course!"

"I'm sure we will, but what will they do first?" asked Kranxx.

"Quiver before our might!"

"And?"

"Quake too?"

Frustrated, Kranxx spoke slowly, enunciating each word. "They'll make noise. They'll sound the alarm. They'll bring more of their kind."

"Raven's eye! I do believe you're right!" Gullik tried to keep a straight face.

"So," Kranxx said ignoring the norn's bemused expresion, "discretion is the better part of ... ?"

"Battle!"

"Valor," corrected the asura.

"And why might that be?"

Kranxx grabbed his head with his hands and nearly fell off of Gullik's shoulders. "It means that it's better to understand what you are up against before you get into a fight. It involves gathering intelligence, thinking broadly, and figuring the odds."

"Fine, friend Kranxx!" Gullik twisted his neck to grin up in the asura's direction. "I shall permit you to do the figuring and to tell me when a battle is too odd!"

Kranxx clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from cursing.

Dougal chuckled as he strove to keep up with Ember. The charr was as fast and nimble as a mountain cat, and she had a longer gait, so keeping pace with her, even in the darkness, took some sweat.

The ground was fairly open, dotted by small copses of trees and the foundations of ancient habitations. Occasionally there would be a weathered crater, a remnant of a centuries-old battle between the humans and charr. Sometimes the center of the crater was empty, and sometimes the water that had gathered in the hollow winked like a crystal in the wan light. The gra.s.s reached up to Dougal's calves and in the daytime probably sported a host of wildflower blossoms.

They kept to moonlit sides of the hills, risking detection to keep from spilling into unseen pitfalls and gullies.

The six moved silently through the dusk and into the night, now not speaking unless necessary. The blue-white shades of the shrouded moon were only interrupted by the towers of flame erupting from the distant charr camps. These lit the undersides of the clouds, and the reflection of that light washed everything in a faint, fiery orange.

Sometime after midnight, Ember signaled for a halt. The others froze, then followed her to hunker down in the shadows of a skeletal charr war wagon, its frame long since scavenged for parts and left rusting in the moonlight. Silently she pointed toward a torch she had seen burning in the night. As they remained hidden, it wound closer.

Dougal glanced over to see Gullik fingering his axe, ready to leap into action at the slightest hint that they had been spotted. Killeen put her hand on the norn's wrist-which looked like a child reaching out to hold her father's hand-and he stopped.

As the torch drew closer, Dougal heard a number of charr voices growling and snarling at each other. The voices grew louder for a while and then tapered off as the torchlight faded in the distance. When it seemed safe, Dougal tapped Ember on the elbow, and she nodded and stood up. They spoke in whispers.

"That was a patrol from the Iron Legion," she said.

"Were they looking for us?" asked Dougal.

Ember shook her head. "No. Not yet."

Dougal had to agree. There was no tension among the Iron Legion charr. They moved like night watchmen making their regular rounds, neither expecting trouble nor encountering any.

They waited another ten minutes before Ember gave the signal to head out.

As a gray dawn threatened to break over the mountains far to the east, Ember steered them to higher ground and found a cave for them to hide in.

"Wolf's haunches, I do not care for burrowing into a dredge-hole!" Gullik said.

Riona nodded. "If a patrol finds us here, we'll have no place to run."

"This is Ascalon," said Ember. "We charr own every bit of it but the place we came from and the place we're going to. There are no places for us to run."

"At least it will be cool," said Kranxx. "My next research project must include methods for capturing the incredible heat that norn give off when exerting themselves."

"And the cave mouth faces south, so I can see the sun," Killeen said with a smile.

"And there's a great view," said Dougal. He gazed back over where they'd been. Far to the south, he could still see the peaks of the mountains in which Ebonhawke nestled. The mountains had given way to gentler foothills, like the one they were holed up in now. Once there had been forests here, but the war had ravaged the earth, and now verdant gra.s.ses had covered these rolling lands.

Dougal had not come this way out to Ascalon City the first time around-five years earlier, he and his friends had crossed through the s.h.i.+verpeaks instead-but he had studied maps of Ascalon for much of his life. On the other side of the hill, he knew, the land would become even easier until he and the others would find themselves racing across wide, open plains. Then they would be at the most vulnerable, with few places to hide; but if they stuck to moving at night, he thought they might be able to manage it.

"Get as much rest as you can," said Ember. "We will move out at noon."

"What? Why?" asked Dougal. Before he could say more, Gullik cut him off with a tremendous snore that echoed through the cave.

Riona nodded and spoke up to be heard over the rumbling. "I thought you said that traveling during the day would be dangerous."

"Yes, but we are close to the Dragonbrand," Ember said. "We would be better off not attempting to cross it at night."

Riona caught Dougal's eye and signaled that she would take the first s.h.i.+ft today, along with Ember. He was too tired to realize that there wouldn't be a second, and he leaned against the back of the cave and tried to ignore the norn's snoring.

The time pa.s.sed so fast that when Dougal woke up, he felt as if he'd not slept at all. He felt a hand covering his mouth, and his eyes flew wide open to see Riona hunched before him, a finger pressed to her lips. After Dougal nodded that he understood, Riona removed her hand from his face, and he sat up. She stood up and beckoned him to follow her. They crept past Ember, who watched them silently with her large eyes, then rose to follow them.

Riona led Dougal to the mouth of the cave, where she knelt down and pointed at a pair of pale figures meandering up the hill in the light of the breaking dawn. Dougal rubbed the sleep from his eyes and squinted down at the figures: an old shepherd and his young apprentice. For a heartbeat he wondered how such people could have possibly brought their flock this deep into Ascalon, and he even gazed around, looking for the sheep. Then he realized what the shepherds really were.

Dougal signaled for Riona to follow him back into the cave. When they reached Ember, they spoke in whispers.

"They're ghosts," Dougal said. "They must have been working the fields around here when Adelbern brought down the Foefire."

Riona rasped. "And their spirits have been trapped out here for over two centuries. Horrible."

"They seem harmless," said Ember.

Dougal shook his head. "Anything but. I run into a lot of ghosts in my line of work. Most restless spirits have some sort of reason for hanging around a place: an unfinished task, a wrong that needs righting, and so on. They're often coherent, and you can hold a reasonable conversation with them. They can be obsessive, or angry, but they're sane-sane for ghosts, at least."

"And those two are not?" asked Riona.

"The spirits created by the Foefire are frozen in time. To them, it's still the day of the Foefire, Adelbern is still their king, and the charr are still threatening at the gates."

"Like in Ebonhawke today," said Riona softly, but both Dougal and Ember ignored her.

Dougal continued. "When they run into someone still alive, they see that person as charr, or at best an ally of the charr. It doesn't matter who or what the person really is. It could be Queen Jennah herself, or a sylvari. To them, every person who invades their s.p.a.ce is charr."

"The Foefire killed every human in the entire country," Ember said. "The Sorcerer-King's atrocity extended far beyond his city's walls."

Dougal nodded. "It affected every bit of the nation except for Ebonhawke."

"What should we do about them?" Riona asked.

"Nothing, unless they come into the cave," Dougal said. "We don't need a fight with them."