Ghosts of Ascalon (guild wars)

by Matt Forbeck

  "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 Shiverpeaks, 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 associates before we even reached Ascalon City…" He let his voice trail off, the images of the past rushing up to meet him.

  "What happened then?" asked Riona.

  Dougal tried to swallow, but his throat was dry. He pulled out a waterskin and took a quick swig from it. The water didn't seem to help.

  "What happened, Dougal?"

  He looked at Riona. If anyone deserved to hear about this, it was her. She had the right to know what had happened to their lost friends. He had to be honest with her. He forgot the others were there, and spoke solely to her.

  "It was… awful. By the time we reached the city's walls, only one of the Lion's Arch group was left, a woman named Cautive, an elementalist. We should have turned back, but we decided that we hadn't come that far to go home, so we pressed on into Ascalon City. That's when it all went indescribably bad.

  "We hadn't been inside the walls for more than fifteen minutes when Cautive lost her mind. She had been a fragile thing to start with, and after seeing so many of her friends die on the way to Ascalon City, knowing that we were in a place infested with ghosts pushed her over the edge. When she saw the remains of all the bodies littering the streets, she started wailing, and no one could get her to stop. We all stood there, in a square in a haunted city, yelling at her to stop and squabbling with each other.

  "Dak finally hit her, just once. She toppled over and smacked her head on the cobblestones. We tried to get her to wake up, but she never did.

  "Any of us might have done it. There we were, racing into a city filled with angry ghosts, and she was honestly loud enough to wake the dead."

  "You didn't have any potions?" asked Kranxx. "No magic to heal her?"

  Dougal shook his head. "Maybe if we'd had more time. But the trouble wasn't that Dak had killed Cautive: it was that he'd silenced her too late.

  "As Vala knelt down to try to help Cautive, the first ghosts appeared. There were probably a dozen of them. They-they looked much like they must have in life. They wore the old Ascalonian uniforms, and they carried swords. But they were colorless, so much so that you could see right through them.

  "When they saw us, they froze, stunned. They just couldn't believe we were there. Then they attacked.

  "As they came at us, they wailed even worse than Cautive had. They were mad in every sense of the word. They had no words for their anger, but they expressed it in noise and steel.

  "You remember the ghosts of the shepherd and his apprentice. When you see a ghost, how insubstantial it looks, you wonder how such a thing could hurt you. Can a mist harm you? It seems ridiculous.

  "But when the first ghost struck, he ran Dak straight through, and that sword of his was solid enough to bring blood up into Dak's mouth. Jervis started casting spells, but there were just too many of them. They actually picked him up, and Marga as well, and carried them away.

  "I'll never forget their screams. They went on forever."

  Dougal felt his throat tighten. After a moment, he continued.

  "Vala gave up on trying to help Cautive and turned her attention to Dak. I left her with him while I tried to rescue Jervis and Marga.

  "I followed their screams. By the time I caught up with Jervis and Marga, the ghosts had taken them to the main square. The place was filled with scores of ghosts, an entire army of them. And there, up on the battlements of the palace, loomed the ghost of King Adelbern, shouting at his dead soldiers.

  "I climbed up the side of a building so I could get a better look. Marga was already dead, her body pulled apart and being tossed about like a rag doll by the spirits. The ghosts were pulling pieces off of Jervis a joint at a time. I had a bow with me, and my first arrow caught him in the chest, which only hurt him more and alerted the ghosts that I was there. I fired the second while they turned to charge at me. The third finally caught Jervis in the throat and put an end to him."

  "You killed Jervis?" Riona spoke so softly that Dougal could barely hear her. He thought about pretending that he hadn't but then nodded.

  "It was the best thing-the only thing-I could do for him." He closed his eyes and tried to banish the look on Jervis's face when the final arrow hit home. It had been a look of gratitude.

  "Bear's blood!" said Gullik, solemn but insistent. "Don't stop there, man! What happened to the others?"

  "I raced back to where I'd left Dak and Vala, but when I got there, all I found was Dak, dead in a pool of blood."

  "What about the woman?" asked Ember. Dougal hadn't even been sure the charr was listening.

  "I-I never found her. I looked, but… I heard her screaming for me once, screaming for me to run. But it was cut off. I tried to keep looking, but the ghosts found me and the pursuit began."

  Kranxx shook his head in disbelief. "So there you were, alone and caught between a legion of charr and an army of angry ghosts. What did you do?"

  "I did what I had to. I left. I fled. Like a dog in the night, I ran from Ascalon City and made my way back to Lion's Arch. We had told some people where we were going, and when I turned up alone, the stories started and a lot of people wanted to hire me, since I had survived the City of Ghosts. But they never realized I had failed, and those I cared abou
t had paid for that failure."

  Dougal put his head in his hands and discovered that his face was wet with tears. He had no idea how long they had been there.

  Riona put a hand on Dougal's arm, and he did not have it in him to brush it away. "I know," she said. "I'm sorry they're gone as well. They were our companions, our patrol, our teammates."

  "They were more than that," said Dougal. "There's something else I have to tell you." He stressed the last word as he looked at Riona and fished out the locket around his neck. "Something I should have said before."

  Dougal opened the locket and sighed as if he hoped he might finally get rid of his last breath. "Vala," he said, looking at the cameo. "Sweet, beautiful, wonderful Vala."

  "What about her?"

  "We… were married, right before we left Lion's Arch," Dougal said, his words falling like hammer blows. "Vala was my wife."

  He looked up to see Riona scowling at him. Her eyes burned with anger and grief in the dying light of the setting sun. For a moment Dougal was sure she was going to strike him, and he wished she would.

  But she didn't; rather, she stood up and stalked off, grabbing her traveling cloak and wrapping it tightly around her. She settled in the doorway of the ruined house, her back to the rest of the group.

  Dougal stood up now, unsteady and wet-faced, and took two steps toward her. Gullik looked at him, hard, and shook his head. Dougal froze, then nodded in agreement. There was no comfort he could offer her, not for this. Instead the norn picked himself up and walked over toward the shattered doorway, setting himself down against a crumbling wall, not so close as to crowd the human woman, but not so far away that if she wanted to talk, she would have to raise her voice.

  Ember and Kranxx laid out their own bedrolls without comment and, with muttered good nights, stretched themselves out. Dougal sat by the cold fireplace for a long time. As the sun died, he knew he would not get any rest before they had to move on.

  They moved through the night in silence now, Ember leading. Riona would not stay near Dougal: when he was near her, she would change her position in the group, sometimes leading, sometimes trailing the party. Gullik remained somber as well, and nothing that Kranxx said could coax him out.

  The land grew more open and rolling, and the forests thicker and older, like spots of dark ebony in the night. In the distance Dougal could see fires from the camps and homesteads of the charr, but none of them were close enough to pose any threat. They also encountered fence lines, metal wire strung between wooden posts and interrupted by rusted gates, simultaneously a sign of ownership and a reminder that these paths were not often used. This was a land unvisited by the wars with the humans.

  Dougal kept his silence as well, until Ember finally said, "I don't understand you humans."

  Dougal looked over at Riona, her eyes forward, marching straight ahead. "Don't ask me. I hardly understand us, either." Her anger of the previous night had abated into a cold, dull fury, and she had said not more than three words so far in the evening's march, and all of them to Ember.

  "If I understand you correctly, you and Riona were, for lack of a better word, close," said the charr.

  "For lack of a better word," admitted Dougal.

  "Yet, she remained in Ebonhawke and you… left." Ember skirted around the question of desertion. "And you and another friend became… close… as well."

  "More than close," said Dougal. "We were married. We wanted to spend the rest of our lives together."

  "And so you did, at least in her case," said Ember, thinking it through but shaking her head. "What bothers me is that Riona was unfazed by the description of her friends being slain. Even when you had to admit slaying one of your companions to end his suffering. But when you admitted that one of them was your wife, then she got angry."

  Dougal looked at Ember's shadowed form in the darkness. The charr seemed honestly curious. "Human relationships are hard to explain to other races."

  Ember snorted, "Oh, I understand. Charr relationships have all that stage drama as well. We on occasion mate for life, though our relationships are usually more casual, and we have more than our share of jealousies, rivalries, expectations, and disappointments. Lovers come together, break apart, and come together years later. We recognize families, though our children enter the fahrar of one of their parents' legion once they have been weaned. There we learn how to fight alongside others and form bonds stronger than family or affection. But you had been apart over six years. Surely she could not expect you to be some sort of celibate?"

  "Our relationship was… complicated," said Dougal. And more than a little undefined, he reminded himself. They had sparred and argued and made up several times even before the memorable night when they had decided to leave Ebonhawke. And after they had left the city, Vala had been supportive and caring, more so than she had been earlier.

  Was there, Dougal wondered, more going on with either woman than he had thought at the time? It would not be the first time he had misread another's thinking.

  "I think the news was unexpected for her," said Dougal at last. "She knew that the rest of our platoon were dead. I told her as much, and she had a chance to deal with it. To find out that I had married Vala and she did not know about it, that was sudden. She will come around. I hope."

  "I hope as well, and the sooner the better, for all our sakes," said Ember, and moved into the darkness once more.

  They ran into another fence and followed it along under the moonlight to a latched gate, then passed through it into another field, this one with shorter grass and fewer weeds. They walked for about ten minutes, then Gullik froze.

  "What is it?" hissed Riona, behind them.

  "Something is moving out there," said Gullik.

  The asura scowled and looked westward. "I see it, too: several somethings."

  Dougal and Ember had doubled back by this time and the five stood clustered together. To the west, dark shapes, heavy and blocky and as long as the norn was tall, were framed against the lighter grass. As they watched, one of them shifted and let out a soft lowing noise.

  Dougal let out a breath of relief. "Cows. Of course."

  "Cows?" said Kranxx, as if it were suddenly a new factor in his calculations.

  Dougal almost laughed. "It makes sense. We're in a pasture, after all, and we've been moving though gated fences."

  The tenseness in the group went out of them in single breath.

  Ember explained, "Charr are mostly carnivores. Most of our land is cleared for ranches, and slaughterhouses dot the landscape. We grow feed for the winter. Cattle, sheep, hogs, dolyaks, and devourers all keep the legions moving."

  Gullik chuckled and scratched his chin. "I wonder if-"

  "No," said Kranxx, "you will not tip the cows."

  The norn snorted and said, "You never let me have any fun."

  More seriously, Ember said, "We are cutting across more settled terrain, and the moon is going down. We should find a safe haven for the rest of the night."

  In the end they found a feed barn, one used to shelter and supply the herds in the winter months, but for the moment open-sided and disused. They would not risk a fire, but the remains of the last season's straw felt as good as the best bed in Lion's Arch.

  "Ember," Dougal said, "when we first met you, you mocked my story of the Foefire. Now's your chance. Tell us the truth about the Foefire."

  The charr snorted. "You don't need truth. You have your own lies. You don't need mine."

  "The more lies, the better," said Dougal.

  Riona raised an eyebrow at Dougal, the friendliest gesture she had made in the last twenty-four hours. "Are you saying the legends of our heroes are nothing but lies, Dougal Keane?"

  "The last time I went to Ascalon City, I only knew one version of what happened with the Foefire," Dougal explained. "I didn't talk to any charr about it. So," he said, speaking now to Ember, "I want to know what you know."

  Ember snorted through her snout and ground her teeth as she
thought about this. "All right," she said, "I will tell it as I know it, but I will refuse to mute any part of it for your ears." The rest of the group nodded.

  "The invasion of Ascalon City was supposed to be the moment of our greatest triumph," said the charr. "Conquering it would have eliminated the last outpost of human resistance in the region and heralded the end of the Ascalon Insurrection."

  "Other than Ebonhawke, you mean," said Riona.

  Ember held up a hand. "Is this your story?" she asked the woman.

  Riona stood her ground, refusing to let the charr intimidate her. "It's about my country."

  "That you stole from my people," replied Ember.

  "Please," said Dougal. "I asked for Ember's unvarnished account of the Foefire. She can't give me that if you interrupt her."

  "Raven's claws!" Gullik said. "Among the norn, we say, 'The best tales are lies that show you truths.' Let the charr speak!"

  Riona screwed up her face, trying to parse the norn's words, but held her tongue. The charr bowed her head to Gullik and Dougal, and continued.

  "The charr side of the tale is handed down to us from the mighty jaws of Frye Fireburn, legionnaire of the Flame Legion and hero of my people. Frye was the leader of one the greatest warbands of his time, the legendary Fireshadows. They served as an elite espionage and assassination team for the Flame imperator.

  "And before you interrupt again"-Ember looked at Riona-"yes, I hate the Flame Legion with a passion. They crippled the old charr ways and led us into the worship of false gods. They made us soft and foolish, and I will fight to keep them from regaining even a fraction of their power. Yet, I say to you that Frye Fireburn of the Flame Legion was a hero, and so you will understand why, if you let me continue.

  "As the Flame Legion surrounded Ascalon for one final assault on the city's walls, the legion's imperator called the Fireshadows to him and ordered them to sneak into the city and assassinate King Adelbern. He believed that this would decapitate the Ascalonian forces, and in their despair they would be unable to mount a viable defense against the charr attack."