Edge of Destiny

by J. Robert King

  Another gale.

  The thing must have lifted into the air. A thousand tons of dragon was hurling down a million tons of air.

  Ferroc Torchtail crawled across the ground. His broken limbs ached, but he struggled to find cover.

  Then the dragon’s breath flooded over him.

  He was transfixed.

  Transformed.

  Hackles melted to spines, hair to scales.

  Legs crystallized.

  Ferroc was becoming something new. The dragon’s kiln-hot breath was hardening fear into fury and turning him into a giant.

  Then the golden gale moved on, pouring on new ground and baking it and transforming it. The dragon scudded away like a thunderhead.

  Ferroc stood in the burned and branded wake of the beast, and with his last conscious thought, he hungered to serve Kralkatorrik.

  Chief Kronon and his ogre warriors and their hyenas had penetrated deep into southwest Ascalon, only half a day’s march from Ebonhawke. They had destroyed three human scouting parties already and planned to kill plenty more before storming the fortress. Charr had already laid siege there, but Kronon and his tribal allies would charge across their backs and take the walls of Ebonhawke.

  The life of Chiefling Ygor was worth a hundred charr and a thousand humans.

  What was this, though? A black cloud rolled across the sky, spitting lightning. What kind of storm was this, with eyes that glowed like coals?

  A golden thunderstroke broke across Chief Kronon and his warriors.

  It bathed them. It broiled them. It turned their muscles to crystals and their bones to stone.

  He felt that he was dying.

  He felt that he was solidifying—a pupa becoming a wasp.

  He grew twice his height before his hide hardened. Then his bones warped to basalt. His hair elongated into stony spikes.

  When the thunderstroke ceased, it left Chief Kronon and his army rocklike and massive, more powerful than ever. It left their hyenas like lions carved of stone, except that they moved.

  The beam passed on, but the dragon’s mind remained. It suffused Chief Kronon’s thoughts—gritty like sand. Itchy. It made him forget vengeance for the dead chiefling. It made him only want to follow.

  Chief Kronon watched the beam go. It was heading south, toward Ebonhawke.

  That was where the master was going.

  Chief Kronon flexed crackling arms. “Follow!” he shouted. Even his voice rang like crystal. “Follow!”

  “Kralkatorrik is coming,” Glint announced in her sanctum. “Fighting him will not be like fighting me. Your golems and weapons cannot harm him. There is only one thing that can.”

  With a grace that belied her size, Glint slid past the companions and reached the other side of the sanctum. She snatched up the crystal spear that hung there and swung it twice before her. It moaned hollowly as it cut the air.

  “This spear was carved from one of Kralkatorrik’s own spines,” Glint explained. “It can pierce his hide, can find his heart.” She thrust it out to Rytlock. “Take it!”

  Rytlock stared for a moment at the spear, then clamped his claws around it.

  “You must strike the killing blow, right here.” Glint motioned to her side, tapping a groove between her ribs. “You must be running when you deliver the stroke, with all your weight behind the lance. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will battle him in the air. I will drive him down toward you. He may be on the ground for only a moment. That is when you must strike.”

  Snaff piped, “I can help you keep Kralkatorrik on the ground.”

  “How, little one? Fighting Kralkatorrik is like fighting a sandstorm.”

  Snaff grinned. “Yes. I have some experience with sand. One of my best friends was made of the stuff.”

  “This is no time to brag,” Zojja said.

  “I’m not bragging,” Snaff tutted. To the dragon, he said, “I’m an expert in creating powerstone portals into minds. They are portals, except that you don’t walk through them with your body, but with your mind. No one else has even attempted this kind of work.”

  “And how will you survive in the mind of an Elder Dragon?” Glint asked. “It has no reason. It has only hunger. Rage. Greed.”

  Snaff nodded. “I play to the hunger, rage, and greed. I become the itch that must be scratched.”

  “How?” Glint asked bluntly.

  Snaff strode over beneath the emerald tree. “What are these green gemstones hanging here?”

  “They are petrified drops of blood from Kralkatorrik—blood from his last battle. For thousands of years, I have gathered them from the sands of the desert and hung them on that tree, keeping them from mortal hands. They are magically potent.”

  “They’re like powerstones,” Snaff said avidly, “but tied to the life force of Kralkatorrik.” He plucked an emerald leaf from the tree. “Do you know what I can do with these?”

  Glint seemed almost to smile. “What?”

  “That one golem I mentioned—Sandy—was made out of billions of grains of sand and thousands of powerstone chips. I controlled Sandy with a powerstone laurel, which sent thoughts from my brain into tiny gemstones within him.”

  “But you don’t have time to build a golem,” Logan objected.

  “I don’t need to build one. With these crystallized drops of blood—thousands of them—I could take hold of your former master.”

  Glint’s eyes grew wide.

  “We’ll pack these blood droplets into exploding arrowheads, and each one that pierces his hide will fill him with thousands of powerstone fragments. They’ll be salted through him by the time I need to take over his mind.”

  Glint shook her head. “You cannot match the will of an Elder Dragon.”

  Zojja set her hands on her hips. “He stared down Jormag. He can stare down this one, too.”

  “He can do it,” Eir assured Glint, “but we’re going to need more than powerstone arrows. We need to get more of these emeralds attached to the dragon sooner.” She snapped her fingers. “Those laurels you make, Snaff—could you make something like that for the dragon?”

  Snaff’s eyes lit. “Yes. Yes, I could! It’ll take a rib out of the cockpit of my Big, but I could fashion a powerstone piece—maybe a yoke or torc—that could clamp onto the dragon.”

  “And Glint,” Eir said, “could you fasten the yoke about Kralkatorrik?”

  “He would not submit to that.”

  Eir strode toward her. “Then battle him. For millennia, you have wanted to stop your master. Now, you can do it. Battle him in the skies and place on him a powerstone laurel—a yoke that will give us access to his mind.”

  Glint’s eyes narrowed as if she saw the fight in the sky. “It will take time. You will be overrun by his minions before I can place the laurel.”

  “Trench works!” Eir said. “U-shaped fortifications in the sand. There are three colonnades—three entrances to this sanctuary. We’ll dig a deep trench before each one—”

  “And fill them with enspelled dragon-blood stones,” Zojja said.

  All eyes turned on her.

  “I can make them stick to minions,” she said. “I can make them embed themselves, and then Snaff can take over their minds. He can use the minions against each other—keep back the tide until you have placed the dragon laurel.”

  “Perfect idea,” Eir said, giving Zojja a rare nod. “And when Snaff must shift his mind from the minions to the master, we all will guard the three doors, keeping him safe until Rytlock can deliver the killing blow.”

  “How can you keep back thousands of giant monsters?” Glint asked.

  “Garm and I can hold one gate, Caithe and Logan can hold another, and Big Zojja can hold the third.”

  SIEGE AND STORM

  Though a besieging army of charr camped on the plains to the north of Ebonhawke, the fortress itself was decked for celebration. The royal banners of Kryta hung beside the emblems of Ebonhawke, and trumpeters lined the c
urtain walls. In the courtyard below, the Ebon Vanguard stood at attention in their dress uniforms, every inch of black armor polished. Their dark figures were outshone by the 144 white-garbed Seraph who stood at attention around their queen.

  Queen Jennah had traveled to Ebonhawke not via the treacherous Shiverpeaks but via the restored asura gate. For years, the gate between Ebonhawke and Kryta had been unreliable, not maintained by the xenophobic human outpost or the last human monarch that could aid it. Years of neglect, though, had been undone by recent treaties. With the defeat of the Destroyer of Life, the asura had sent their best minds to repair and improve the ancient asura gate between Ebonhawke and Divinity’s Reach.

  Today, Queen Jennah was officially declaring the renewed asura gate open. She stood before the assembled might of Ebonhawke and gestured to the glimmering gate behind them.

  Her majestic figure was projected by a mesmeric aura above the crowd, and she spoke to them all. “With this gate, you are no longer alone in the wilderness. With this gate, Ebonhawke is connected to the heart of Divinity’s Reach. The asura will maintain it, and it will not fall into disrepair again. Through this gate, supplies will come to you—food and weapons and armor and medicines. Through this gate, reinforcements will come—new recruits and seasoned veterans and even, in time of great need, these white-garbed warriors.”

  That brought applause from some, but murmurs of uncertainty from others: “We don’t need Seraph.”

  “They’re better for parades than battlements.”

  “She sends them, she’ll send orders.”

  The queen went on, “Through this gate, you will go on leave, out of a land of constant war and into a city of eternal peace, out of the rigors of battle and into the splendors of the greatest city on Tyria. Through this gate, your wounded will go to Vanguard Hospital in the heart of Divinity’s Reach, to be cared for as all heroes should.”

  The warriors cheered that thought, but their celebration was interrupted by the distant rumble of thunder. A few of the trumpeters on the wall turned to gaze north, where a black cloud was boiling up.

  “From this day forward, except at time of imminent danger, this gate will remain open—a road between humanity’s bravest outpost and its brightest city.”

  The Seraph applauded these closing words, and the Vanguard joined in. But another peal of thunder—louder and nearer—interrupted the ovation. The trumpeters turned again to see a black cloud eating up the sky.

  The queen signaled for the Krytan Fanfare.

  Only a few horns began it, but others joined in, swelling the refrain.

  A voice spoke in Queen Jennah’s ear: “We must get you to safety.” It was Countess Anise, a Shining Blade exemplar who was always beside the queen. Anise grasped the queen’s arm and impelled her down from the platform.

  Dylan Thackeray met the queen on the steps. “My queen, a storm threatens.”

  Jennah glanced between her bodyguards. “Since when have I feared rain?”

  “It’s more than rain.” Dylan fell in step beside the queen and Anise. “Something stirs the sky, my queen.”

  The Krytan Fanfare faltered.

  Dylan halted, drawing his sword and looking to the wall.

  Trumpeters quit midsong and turned toward the stairs. They rushed down while warriors rushed up.

  The black cloud was spreading with preternatural speed. In heartbeats, it engulfed the sky. Waves of dark magic riled through the belly of the cloud, and red lightning flickered horribly. In the far west, a strange golden beam tore down from the cloud to rake the horizon.

  “I’m going up to see,” Dylan told the queen. “Countess Anise, get the queen to the keep, to an inner chamber, and let no one and nothing through to her.”

  The countess scowled. “Do not tell me my duty, Captain Thackeray. She will be safe.”

  Anise and two other guardians led Queen Jennah toward the keep of Ebonhawke.

  Dylan watched them go. Those Shining Blade always surrounded Queen Jennah, pretending to be greater protectors than he. Let them prove it now. The best way for Dylan to guard the queen was to learn what this storm was.

  He rushed up the stairs along the curtain wall. The walkway at the top had long since been vacated by trumpeters, but the Ebon Vanguard remained, staring out.

  The sky was black, and the storm overhead convulsed like a living thing. All around the ravenous cloud, dust devils ripped up the ground. Sandstorms boiled, and siroccos screamed.

  “The charr’ll have a hard time of it,” Dylan muttered with satisfaction.

  He looked down on the brutes’ encampment on the northern plain. Their tents were ranked in even rows surrounded by great iron siege engines. The charr had closed off the eastern and western roads, and their sappers had dug zigzag trenches approaching the walls. Though the charr had besieged Ebonhawke for years, they seemed serious about bringing down the fortress this time—serious about shutting down the asura gate. By the look of the earthworks and war wagons, they were only a month from bringing their siege to storm.

  But another storm was overtaking them.

  Charr stood in the lanes between their tents, horned heads cast back, eyes fixed on the boiling skies. The storm would be hard on them, indeed.

  Movement drew Dylan’s gaze. He looked beyond the charr encampment to the dry fields in the far north. Something was advancing there. It looked like a sandstorm—a long line bounding forward across the wastes. But the storm clung to the ground, and it seemed too solid to be sand.

  “What is that?” asked a young watchman nearby. He peered intently at the line, his head forward, his hands braced on the battlements.

  He looked so like Logan that Dylan had to glance back at the young man to make sure it was not he. But no. Why would Logan ever enlist to fight for humanity?

  “That’s another army,” the young watchman said, straightening up.

  “Impossible,” Dylan replied. “It’s moving too fast.”

  The watchman shook his head. “An army of giants.”

  Next moment, Dylan himself could see them—huge ogres running across the plains with jagged hyenas in their midst. Dylan had never seen such massive ogres, and light glinted from them as if their skins were crystal.

  “To arms!” shouted a nearby lieutenant. The call was echoed along the wall and throughout the bailey below. Watchers loaded crossbows and lifted longbows, ballista crews readied great bolts, catapulters rolled huge stones into their mechanisms.

  A crack of lightning split the sky.

  The thunder shook the heavens and didn’t stop.

  Dylan gaped in awe at the voracious bolt.

  It struck a charr siege tower, setting the wood ablaze, then jagged like a knife through their camp. It didn’t cease, its crackling column ripping open the ground, setting the camp on fire, frying every charr in a hundred feet. The rolling thunder of the bolt solidified the air. Lightning lashed with a will through the charr camp before vaulting to the wall of the fortress itself.

  “Look out!” Dylan shouted, but his voice was lost to the thunder.

  The lightning smashed the wall, incinerating a catapult crew. It blasted stones apart and hurled ten-ton rocks into the courtyard. One great boulder rolled to crash into the asura gate, toppling it.

  The lightning leaped onward to Ebonhawke Keep itself. It exploded the guard station atop it and tumbled the burning warriors to the courtyard below.

  The strike then vaulted to the back wall of Ebonhawke and ripped it open as well.

  Capering and cackling, it tore on southward, across the Crystal Desert.

  Only as the blinding glare eased and the thunder retreated was there room to think.

  Stunned, Dylan stared at the lightning’s path—the fires that burned the charr camp, the great breach in the northern wall, the toppled ruins of the asura gate, the shattered height of the keep, the blasted rift in the southern gate . . .

  It was as if the god Balthazar had run his finger through camp and fort—a boy mixi
ng black ants with red—so that human and charr would annihilate each other.

  But it wasn’t just humans and charr.

  There were ogres, too.

  Already, the ogres were charging into the northern part of the charr camp. Rifle blasts ripped out from the charr, but not a single ogre fell. They roared in, their clubs bashing charr, their hyenas tearing through tents. More gunfire. More clubbing. The ogres bounded through the charr as if they were not there. In moments, they would break through the encampment and surge across no-man’s-land.

  “Prepare to fire!” shouted an Ebon Vanguard lieutenant.

  All along the wall, bows drew taut and ballistae creaked and catapults strained.

  “Fire!”

  A hail of bolts and shafts and boulders vaulted down onto the ogres and hyenas. The arrows only glanced off them. One ballista impaled an ogre, bringing him down, and two of the catapult stones smashed others, but the rest came on.

  Armed for hand-to-hand combat, Dylan would be no help on the wall. He turned and descended the stairs into a courtyard in turmoil. Warriors rushed to their posts or struggled to close the breaches in the walls. Dylan strode among them, heading toward the keep.

  He would defend it with his life. With his life, he would defend his queen.

  Queen Jennah and her three Shining Blade bodyguards had just entered the armory on the fifth floor of the keep when lightning struck. Boom! It was like being inside a drum. The walls shuddered, the floor shook, and stones and bodies plunged past the windows.

  Hands gripped the queen, steadying her. It was Countess Anise—pale, thin, beautiful, and angry.

  “What was that?” the queen wondered aloud. “There was mind in that stroke.”

  Countess Anise said, “Yes. I felt it, too.”

  The queen stepped up to the window, drawing Anise with her. She stared out into the tormented sky and said, “We are mesmers. We know minds—how to touch them, how to turn them. Let us meditate on the mind in this storm.”

  Anise channeled thoughts into her.

  Queen Jennah of Kryta, staring from a window high in Ebonhawke Keep, peered into the mind of darkness.