by Matt Forbeck
Dougal cursed. It was one thing to let Gullik take a stand against the minion by himself: he was a norn-and, more importantly, a norn who was a veteran of many battles and who hoped for a legendary death. Killeen, for all her strangeness, was guilty of nothing other than helping a friend.
"On my way!" he shouted, and charged forward to help the sylvari.
Dougal drew his black sword and wondered if it would have any effect on the creature at all, or if attacking it would be like slashing a stone wall. He dragged the blade against a glittering bush, and it fell apart in a satisfying shower of diamonds. The minion halted its progress toward Killen and focused its eyes on him instead. For a moment Dougal looked deep into the eyes of the beast, and could feel nothing but hatred in their depths. Then as quickly as it gazed into Dougal's heart, it dismissed him and turned back to the necromancer.
Before Dougal could stop it, the diamond-hided minion drove an earthshaking punch down at the sylvari. Killeen dodged to one side to avoid the blow, but even so, the impact of the near-miss was enough to stagger her.
Dougal was upon them now, just as the minion was about to level another blow at Killeen. He lunged at it with his sword. To his surprise, the blade went into the creature as easily as if he'd rammed it into a sack of grain. Indeed, shining sand poured from the wound, glittering in the Dragonbrand's unearthly light.
The minion shivered in protest at the blow and its attack went wide, smashing the ground far from Killeen. But the sudden movement wrenched the sword from Dougal's grip, leaving him unarmed.
The minion wheeled and punched down at Dougal this time. Dougal dodged under the strike, diving past the creature's one good leg. As he did, he spotted Gullik hauling himself up out of the crater of glassy dust formed when the minion had landed on him. Blood flowed over every inch of the norn's exposed skin, and he looked as if he'd been run through a mill. Despite that, he grabbed his axe and let out a mighty cry-and then collapsed, disappearing once more into the crater.
Killeen started another spell while the minion reeled back to launch another blow in Dougal's direction. "It's shrugging off your spells!" Dougal said. "Get out of here!"
"I might not be able to harm it directly," the sylvari said, her jaw set at a determined angle, "but there are other ways!"
Dougal dove away from the minion's attack again and slipped on the crystalline glass. His legs flew out from under him and he fell flat on his back. He was close enough to the creature now to see right into its glittering eyes, which had taken on a redder hue.
The minion slammed down another fist at Dougal, but he rolled out of the way and scrambled to his hands and knees. The crystals splashed up from the blow's impact lanced his sides and legs. A second punch rained down at him, but he was already scrambling out of its way, heading toward where he thought his sword had landed. It was cradled in a crystalline bush, the buds of gemstone flowers already winding around it.
Dougal grasped the hilt and pulled, and the bush screeched as its branches and flowers shattered from the force. Then he spun around to see that the crystalline creature had decided to ignore him for a moment. It had returned to hunting Killeen instead.
The sylvari was at the crater's rim now, desperately trying to finish another spell. This time the target of her incantation was Gullik. The battered norn had finally managed to crawl out of the purple-powdered crater. He bled from countless wounds as he staggered to his feet, and Dougal was sure he saw bone sticking through his skin in at least three different places, but the norn would not let that stop him.
Killeen's spell enveloped Gullik in a bright red nimbus, although it was hard to tell if the color came from the magic or the blood dripping from the norn's skin. As the final words of the spell left the sylvari's lips, she let her concentration lapse and glanced up to see the minion swinging its injured arm in a backhanded slap, level with the twisted earth. The arm was attached to the rest of its body by a fraction of its width, and the creature snapped it like a whip.
Gullik fell backward, but Killeen was not so fortunate. The back of the creature's fist smacked into Killeen with a sickening crunch, and she went sailing off to the north, with most of the minion's arm following the same trajectory. Dougal watched them both arc through the air as if they'd been loosed from a catapult. He gasped in horror as the boulder-sized arm fragment smashed into the sylvari as she landed on the ground.
Furious, Dougal turned back, raised his sword over his head, and charged at the dragon's minion. The creature moved more slowly, now that it was missing two limbs, but it was still a deadly threat. Dougal slashed at the thing's head, and his sword cut a long line across its face, just below the eyes.
The minion brought up its one good arm and smashed it down at Dougal. Watching the arm coming down at him, Dougal thought he'd finally made his last mistake, but the blow missed him by inches. As he wondered why, he saw that Gullik had gotten close enough to chop the back of the creature's good leg with his axe.
The glow that had surrounded Gullik now expanded to envelop the minion's leg at the point where the norn had damaged it. Dougal saw one of the bones poking out of Gullik's lower leg pull itself back into him and the skin heal over the wound.
Dougal understood then what Killeen had done. The spell she'd cast on Gullik allowed him to steal life force from the minion and take it for his own. Every time the warrior hit the creature, the spell drained its life force and gave it to the norn instead.
Gullik's blow had gotten the minion's attention, and it tried to reach back with its good arm to swat the norn, but missed. Seeing his chance, Dougal ran forward and cut at the creature again with his sword. The minion reared back in silent pain: the mouth that Dougal had cut into it sagged open now. Apparently confused, it turned back toward the human.
Then its left eye exploded.
Dougal cast a quick glance to the right and saw smoke curling from Ember's pistol even as she dropped the gun and drew her sword. Riona was already closing the distance between them and the beast, and Kranxx had his lightning rod out. The last was a mistake, as the lightning homed in on it and smashed the ground around their feet, staggering all three of them.
Help was coming, but it was still critical moments before it would reach them-moments when the creature could take out its frustrations on Dougal. Dougal backpedaled furiously across the broken ground, while Gullik leaped up on the creature's back and brought his axe down on it.
The blow made the creature shudder from one end of its body to the other, but Gullik found some way to hold on. With the minion's energy surging into him again, he pulled himself forward and brought his axe back for a powerful, two-handed strike. It landed directly on the creature's neck, cracking it.
The minion's head held on for a moment, hanging from its shoulders, but then its neck shattered. Dougal covered his head with his arms to protect himself from the flying shards, then dove to the side to avoid the boulder-sized crystal head as it fell.
Gullik rode the creature's now limp body down as it crashed into the ground, sending up a new cloud of finely ground dust that exploded from the spot where the thing struck. The last Dougal saw of the norn, he still had one hand on the handle of his axe, which had become embedded in the minion's back. He had the other raised in a triumphant fist, and he shook it at the sky as he let loose a norn war cry that seemed loud enough to reach the distant Shiverpeaks.
When the dust cleared, Dougal picked himself up off the ground and shook as much of the purple crystals from his face and arms as he could. Once he could finally see again, he spotted Gullik standing on top of the fallen creature, his axe slung over his shoulder. Although the reddish glow had left him, he looked exhausted but as hale and hearty as ever.
The norn smiled, but that smile froze and his face fell. And Dougal remembered the cost at which that victory had come.
"Killeen," he whispered.
Dougal charged over to where the minion's fist had crushed the sylvari. He found her trapped beneath the gigantic
hand from her waist down. Her eyes were open and unblinking, and she had long since stopped breathing.
Dougal knelt beside Killeen's crumpled form. Ember, Riona, and Kranxx came up behind him, Gullik last of all, still coated in purplish dust. Riona tried to put a hand on Dougal's shoulder, but he pushed it away. For a long while, all he could do was stand and stare at the dead sylvari and struggle to control the anger building inside him. As he did, the thunder around them grew louder, and rain began to fall.
No one said a word as they watched the drops of water start to wash the dust from Killeen.
"Dougal," Riona started, "I'm sorry-"
Dougal cut her off. "Don't," he muttered, his eyes not leaving Killeen's corpse.
"We should have run," Kranxx said. "All of us. Any idiot could see that our best chance of surviving such an encounter was to flee."
Dougal glanced up and hurled daggers at him with his eyes. "Well, it looks like one of us idiots paid the price."
Kranxx stammered a moment. "I tried my lightning rod, but it had an odd effect in this environment. Its metaspell solenoids are fried out now."
"Aye," said Ember, "and my first two shots misfired before I could take out that thing's eye."
Dougal's face flushed with anger and regret. "I should have dragged her away in the first place."
"If you had," said Ember, "we would have left Gullik behind to fight that creature alone."
"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 damned 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 Gods to guide her safely through the Mists."
"The charr have no gods," 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 passing 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 passed 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 cluster 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 Gods. 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.
