Edge of Destiny

by J. Robert King

  Quicksand! But it wasn’t watery. It was firm—like muscle.

  A huge sand creature was emerging beneath her. Its back arched from the arena floor and revealed a head with pointed ears. Caithe’s feet were mired in its shoulder. Sand sifted away to reveal broad but stumpy arms and stocky legs. The golem stood to full height—a gigantic asura in the likeness of the older asura.

  The golem moved as the asura moved. He lifted a hand to his shoulder and pressed firmly down, and the golem’s hand lifted the same way, driving Caithe to midthigh in the sandy golem. She stabbed the thing with her daggers, but the blades only sank away, lost in the all-consuming sand.

  Caithe shouted for help, but her teammates couldn’t possibly hear over the roar of the crowd.

  Why are they laughing? Logan wondered, but he had no time to look.

  The norn’s mallet thrummed the air. Logan leaped aside as the maul cratered the ground. He hurled his own maul around in a sudden, desperate stroke. The head missed the norn but struck the handle of her mallet, breaking it. The blow also jarred the norn’s hands. She staggered back.

  It was Logan’s first opening, and he took it.

  Spinning, he whirled the war hammer in a moaning circle.

  The norn tried to leap away, but the hammer struck a glancing blow to her ribs. Crack! Breath blasted from her. She staggered back, fell to the ground, and gasped.

  A cheer resonated from the crowd.

  Logan turned and saw that Caithe was half-buried in the shoulder of a—what was that thing? A sand golem?

  He ran toward the golem, raised his hammer, and brought it down against the golem’s leg. Steel struck sand and flung away a divot of it. The remaining sand, though, grabbed hold of his weapon. Logan pulled it free and struck again, blasting more sand away. The leg was thinning, the golem tottering. Logan chopped like a lumberjack.

  The golem reached its massive hand down to grab him, but Logan dodged away. He smashed one of the sandy fingers, obliterating it. Still the hand reformed and took another swipe at him.

  As Logan spun out of reach, he glimpsed the little asura making the same motions as the big one: a puppeteer.

  Ducking another attack, Logan rushed up to the asura, hoisted him off his feet, turned him over, and shook him. A golden laurel fell from his head.

  Twenty feet behind him, the golem toppled onto its back and shuddered. Sand sifted away from Caithe’s legs, and she clawed her way out of the dissolving monster.

  A great cheer erupted.

  “Let him go!” came a shout.

  Logan turned to see the other asura, the apprentice, staring him down. He laughed. “Let him go or what?”

  “Or this!” she responded, flinging her hands out.

  A bolt of lightning erupted from her grip, smashing into Logan and hurling him across the sands. His nerveless hand lost hold of the asura, who toppled separately. Logan also dropped his hammer. It tumbled to the ground as he did. Logan staggered up, jangled by the blast, and grabbed his hammer in numb fingers.

  Meanwhile, the asura apprentice flung the powerstone laurel to her master. He donned it somewhat dizzily.

  From the sands, the huge golem mounded up, taking shape again and hulking to its feet. As the asura puppet master marched in place, the sand golem lumbered toward Caithe.

  “No!” Logan roared, and ran toward the golemancer.

  The sand golem meanwhile snatched up Caithe in one fat fist.

  Logan was ten feet from the golemancer when another bolt of blue blasted into him and hurled him back.

  He crashed over the sands only to have sands crash over him: the sandy fist. That damned golem clutched him in one hand and clutched Caithe in the other and ran toward Rytlock.

  Rytlock turned to escape, but the wolf lunged against his back and knocked him down.

  Next moment, the lumbering golem arrived and slumped down, burying Rytlock to his chest.

  There was a moment of stunned silence in the arena as the norn warrior strode back to join her battle-scarred wolf and the two asura geniuses.

  Then all eyes shifted to Edge of Steel, buried in sand.

  The crowd erupted. Every voice shouted, every hand clapped, and the roar of it all evolved into the cry “Des-ti-ny! Des-ti-ny! Des-ti-ny!”

  In the infirmary beneath the arena, the two gladiatorial teams met once again. Chirurgeons tended Garm’s many claw wounds and Rytlock’s many bite marks; they set Eir’s broken ribs and Snaff’s dislocated shoulder. But most of all, they kept Edge of Steel from murdering Dragonspawn’s Destiny.

  Rytlock roared, “You hid a golem in the arena!”

  “We’re golemancers,” Snaff replied. “What did you think we were going to do? Stand there and get slaughtered?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  Eir gasped as the chirurgeon set plaster to her bruised side. “Then you failed to plan.”

  “Of course we didn’t plan,” Rytlock snarled. “We’re fighters, not engineers.”

  “Which is why you need us,” Zojja put in.

  “We don’t need anybody,” Rytlock spat.

  “We defeated you,” Eir said. “You’re not invincible. But together, we can be.”

  “Why would we ever join you?”

  “Because we own you now,” Eir said. “We made a bet with Captain Magnus the Bloody Handed, and we won your billet.”

  Rytlock convulsed, his claws raking out and narrowly missing his chirurgeons. “Damn it!”

  “You have no choice,” Eir said coolly. “You will go with us to fight the Dragonspawn.”

  Rytlock was trembling with fury, unable to speak.

  Logan set a hand on his shoulder. “She’s right. Trick or no trick, we’ve got to go.”

  Snaff winced as a chirurgeon set a hot towel on his shoulder. “The fact is, you three aren’t gladiators.”

  “Aren’t we?” barked Rytlock.

  Snaff shook his head. “Of course not. You’re heroes. You don’t need to fight trumped-up battles against prearranged foes.” He looked around at the stone ceiling. “You should be out beneath the sky, fighting real monsters.”

  Rytlock, Logan, and Caithe looked at each other, unsure what to say.

  Snaff sighed. “We went after you because you were the heroes we needed. We set this whole thing up, crossed continents, designed golems, bet with our own lives to win your billet and to win you to our side. Yes, we can force you to join us, but we don’t want henchmen. We want heroes.”

  Again, the members of Edge of Steel traded glances.

  At last, Logan spoke for them all. “Tell us about the lair of the Dragonspawn.”

  From Her Royal Majesty, Jennah,

  Queen of Kryta,

  Regent of Ascalon

  To Logan Thackeray

  Greetings:

  I have received word that you and your comrades are leaving the arena to go on a quest. Congratulations. I always felt that your courage was wasted on gladiators: you were meant for greater things.

  But I fear that this quest is beyond even a hero such as yourself. Dragon champions are not to be trifled with. They are of themselves tremendously powerful, but they also tap into the inexhaustible power of their lords, the Elder Dragons. This Dragonspawn is the greatest champion of ancient and wicked Jormag and has destroyed countless heroes—whole companies of norn.

  As your queen, I could forbid you to do this thing, but I have seen you defeat a legion of charr. I have seen you slay devourers and destroyers, centaurs and ettins and worse. If anyone could defeat the Dragonspawn, it would be you.

  So, I will not forbid it. I will trade fear for hope and look forward to congratulating you on this latest and greatest of your victories.

  Your queen,

  Jennah

  THE CALM BEFORE

  Two weeks later, an amazing group passed through the Hoelbrak asura gate. First came Eir Stegalkin, her head breaking through the magical membrane beside the head of Rytlock Brimstone. The woman and the charr marched side by side, pull
ing a wagon behind them. The wagon was fully loaded, with a tarp strapped across its contents. On the tarp sat Snaff, looking quite satisfied, and Zojja, looking somewhat sour. On one side of the wagon walked Logan Thackeray in his much-scarred armor, and on the other side strolled Caithe of the Firstborn. Behind the conveyance loped the dire wolf Garm.

  As this group emerged from the gate, the norn guards spread out in a semicircle around them. Two guards stepped before the wagon, planted spear butts in the road, and leaned the points toward Eir and Rytlock.

  “Halt, there, Eir Stegalkin, by order of Knut Whitebear!” demanded a tall guard with blond braids.

  Eir halted.

  “Chilly welcome,” Rytlock noted, looking impressed.

  “Tell Knut Whitebear that I have returned with a band of warriors to slay the Dragonspawn,” Eir ordered.

  The guard nodded and turned to go but caught himself. “I give the orders here.”

  “Go tell him.”

  The guard’s eyes locked with hers in a staring contest that he quickly lost. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He handed his spear to the guard beside him and stormed off. “We’ll see about this.”

  The other guard, his hair dirty white like glacial runoff, hitched his chin at the wagon. “What’ve you got in there?”

  “Provisions,” Eir said simply.

  “Like what?”

  “Like meat. Charr eat meat.”

  The charr flashed a smile.

  The guard stared at Rytlock. “You look familiar. Are you a gladiator?”

  Rytlock’s smile only deepened. “One-third of Edge of Steel.”

  “Edge of Steel!” the guard said, smacking himself in the head. “Of course! You’re famous. Everybody was talking about you, coming and going through the gate—so I went and saw you. Incredible! When you killed that destroyer harpy—”

  “Racogorrix, yeah,” Rytlock supplied, hitching a claw over his shoulder. “That was Logan—”

  “I thought the crowd was going to tear the place down!” the guard enthused. His eyebrows suddenly knitted. “Hey, did I hear something about you guys losing a match?”

  It was Eir’s turn to smile. “We beat them.”

  “You? You three? You and these two?”

  “We’re geniuses,” Snaff explained.

  Eir nodded. “We three and the dire wolf. We’re called Dragonspawn’s Destiny.”

  “Yeah. Whoa! You beat Edge of Steel, and they joined up with you? That would make you, like, Edge of Dragonspawn’s Steely Destiny . . . uh, what do you call yourselves?”

  “Destiny’s Edge,” Eir supplied.

  Just then, the first guard returned, followed by a broad norn warrior with much scarred skin. Knut Whitebear’s eyes were black pits beneath his glowering brows.

  Before he could speak, the second guard blurted, “Do you know who this is?”

  “Eir Stegalkin,” Knut said, addressing her.

  “Not just her, but these are Destiny’s Edge—the best gladiators ever with the band that beat them!”

  Knut ignored the guard. “This is your band?”

  Eir met his gaze. “Rytlock is a Blood Legion soldier, and Logan has fought for Queen Jennah. They, with Caithe, one of the firstborn sylvari, slew an ogre chiefling, his warband, and his hyenas. They killed devourers and destroyers and went undefeated in the arena in Lion’s Arch—”

  “But the rest of these are the same hapless creatures you took before—”

  “The rest of these defeated this undefeated team in combat not two weeks ago,” Eir said flatly.

  Knut nodded, impressed, but doubt still lingered in his eyes. “What of those blasted clockwork creatures?”

  “Do you see any?” Eir asked. “This is a force like no other. We go north to destroy the Dragonspawn.”

  Knut gritted his teeth. “You’d better not fail again, or his wrath will fall on us all.”

  “It won’t happen again. We’ll destroy him this time.”

  “Outlaw, huh?” Rytlock muttered as he and Eir drew the heavy wagon through Hoelbrak.

  “Outcast, more like,” Eir corrected, “temporarily.”

  The charr nodded. “An outlaw steals a pig. An outcast pretty much destroys a whole city.”

  “That’s right.”

  Rytlock mulled the response for a while before asking, “What did you do?”

  “Brought on a blizzard—twenty feet of snow. Ice sharp as daggers. Roofs caved. People died. The Dragonspawn did not like being nearly killed.”

  The charr whistled through his teeth. “Never leave an enemy alive. That was your mistake.”

  “It’s the Dragonspawn’s mistake, too.”

  Well north of Hoelbrak, the charr and the norn staggered to a stop and parked the wagon on the tundra. Just beside the wagon lay the wreckage of Big Snaff.

  “There’s one of them,” Eir said.

  The damage was severe. The golem’s stone head had split in half, with Big Snaff’s left eye and nose and mouth lying close by but the rest of his face some fifty feet away. His golem body lay in three pieces nearby—two mangled legs and a battered torso with broken arms.

  Snaff and Zojja jumped down from the wagon to investigate. After a few minutes of stooping and peering, Snaff called back, “Worse than I thought.”

  “What happened to it?” Rytlock asked.

  Eir pantomimed a pair of talons hoisting the golem into the air and letting it go.

  “You mean, you marched that thing in against the Dragonspawn, and it hurled it back out?” Rytlock asked.

  “Many miles back out,” Eir replied.

  “The stanchions are shattered,” Zojja reported. “The servos are split. We could salvage some thylid crystals—maybe—use some of the gear work elsewhere—maybe—but there’s no way this golem’s going to fight again.”

  Garm let out a howl, his nose pointed north.

  The team looked to the horizon, where the other broken figure lay.

  “Take them there,” Eir commanded.

  The dire wolf trotted to Snaff, bit down on his shirt, and hurled him up across his back. The wolf then did the same for Zojja. Once the two were seated, he galloped out across the mossy ground, heading for the next wreck site.

  “Let’s go,” Eir said, hauling on the wagon.

  Amazed and unnerved, Rytlock staggered forward, pulling as well.

  That night, the group gathered around a campfire. Eir and Rytlock reclined on the wagon they had hauled all day while Caithe, Logan, and the two asura perched on pieces of scavenged golem. Actually, the asura didn’t perch. They worked. With wrenches and screwdrivers, mallets and awls, they struggled to resurrect the wreckage.

  “This Snaff matrix won’t fit inside the Zojja fuselage,” Zojja complained.

  “Do your best,” Snaff replied, not for the first time. “It just has to work. It doesn’t have to be pretty.” He was currently replacing the shattered ankle joint of the golem.

  “Can we march by morning?” Eir asked.

  “Yes. Yes,” Snaff responded absently, “by morning.”

  Logan took a deep breath of the frosty night air and looked to Eir. “Tell us about the Dragonspawn.”

  Eir nodded pensively. “The Dragonspawn isn’t so much a man but a creature of ice and cold. He leads an army of the icebrood and Sons of Svanir.”

  “I’ve heard the name,” Logan said. “What are they, anyway?”

  “Two hundred fifty years ago, a hunter named Svanir and his sister Jora led a band of norn to slay the wolves that ruled Drakkar Lake. They were crossing the frozen waters when a strange presence grasped Svanir’s mind. It whispered seductions to him, promised power and prey. It was a voice of infinite hunger and hate, and Svanir listened to it.

  “Jora heard the voice, too, but it terrified her. She refused its dark gifts and tried to drag her brother away, but he struck her and told her she was weak, told her he had discovered the well of power. She fled.

  “Svanir remained to commune with
his newfound lord. In time, the voice began to change him. It taught him to hate all living things. It stripped him of his human form and made him a champion—half bear, half norn, encrusted with ice. Svanir wandered the wastes in madness, attacking any who came near. He became a monster that his own sister had to destroy.

  “Over the next hundred fifty years, the voice seduced more norn, and they joined the cult, becoming the Sons of Svanir. They believed they were drawing upon the ancient voice, but in fact it was drawing upon them, gaining the power to rise.

  “And it did rise. One of the Elder Dragons. Jormag was its name.

  “We fought Jormag—gladly we fought it, for norn are made for battle. But never had we fought a beast like this. It was a living blizzard. It and its minions froze us where we fought and buried our lands in snow and ice and tore apart Gunnar’s Hold with a massive glacier. It took our lands. It drove us south.

  “And despite the destruction, there are still foolish norn who hear the call of Svanir and seek the power of Jormag. In the end they are reduced to icebrood themselves, flesh wrapped in ice, fed by malevolence and hatred.”

  As Eir’s tale fell to silence, her comrades stared into the fire and listened to it crackle.

  At last, Rytlock said, “You want us to destroy a living blizzard that defeated the entire norn nation?”

  Eir’s eyes were fierce. “I want us to destroy the dragon’s champion, his right arm. When the Dragonspawn is dead, Jormag will be maimed. Then we can strike the dragon’s heart.”

  Rytlock took first watch while Eir, Caithe, Logan, and Garm took their rest. Wrapped in blankets, they nestled down on the mossy tundra, seeking warmth. Only the two asura worked on. By the middle of Rytlock’s watch, Zojja had became cruel and cranky, like a tired child. Her verbal barbs grew sharper by the minute, and at last Snaff sent her off to sleep.

  Rytlock walked the perimeter. Overhead, a sickle moon tore through rags of cloud. On the icy desolation all around, moon shadows flitted like ghosts. Rytlock shivered. “We should let the dragon keep this place.”