by Matt Forbeck
Dougal hoped that the ghosts would not be as active now, with the sun still on the rise, as they might be at night. Due to the city's high walls and surrounding buildings, though, shadows would hold on to the night long into the day.
And despite the fact that they had previously encountered the ghosts at night, it did not mean they were afraid of the day. Or any less lethal.
Soon they reached the street that led to the main square. As they drew closer, Dougal grew more and more tense. At one point he noticed he was unconsciously holding his breath. He had to force himself to breathe.
It was then that he realized where he was. Intentionally or not, he had brought the others to the very place where he had last seen Vala and Dak alive. He had struggled so hard to blot it from his memories that he didn't recognize it at first. But when he saw a familiar set of armor lying on the street in the center of a large bloodstain that the years had not done enough to fade, it all came flooding back to him.
He knelt down next to the skeleton that had once been his friend, and he reached out to touch the front of the helmet it still wore. "Dak Turnbull," he said. "How did it all go so wrong?"
Riona came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Is it really him?" The pain on her face made her look much older.
Dougal stood up and found himself in Riona's embrace. "It's all right," she said. "Finishing the job here will make it right." Then she stopped and Dougal felt Riona's breath catch in her chest at something she saw over his shoulder.
"Oh, no," she whispered in his ear.
She might have said something else, but Dougal couldn't hear it. The sound of someone shouting from up the street drowned her out.
"Alarm! Alarm!" an ethereal, strident voice cried. "The walls have been breached! Invaders are in Ascalon City! Alarm! Alarm!"
Dougal spun around to see who was screaming at them. A ghostly figure stood across the street, pointing and yelling at Ember. She wore Ebonhawke armor and bore a greatsword in both hands. For a moment Dougal thought it was Vala herself, returned from the dead, and for that moment he was transfixed by the idea. But the mists around her face cleared to reveal a stranger, one of the watchers. That was when Dougal realized someone else was yelling at him.
"Dougal Keane!" Ember shouted. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around to look at her.
"What?" he asked, still stunned by everything roiling about in his head.
"That!" Ember stabbed a finger in the direction of another street that emptied out into the square. Dougal remembered from his research that this road led to the soldiers' barracks, although he was sure it had been centuries since anyone had slept there.
A column of ghostly soldiers stormed down that road, rushing into the main square. Dougal recognized them at once as part of the same force that had killed his friends the last time he'd braved the streets of Ascalon City. These were the spirits of people slaughtered by the Foefire, like the simple shepherds they'd met near the Dragonbrand, only far more dangerous. He gazed into their faces and saw no love there, no compassion for the living, just madness and an all-consuming lust for death.
"Bear's blood!" Gullik said as he unlimbered his axe. "This will be a battle worthy of any saga!"
"You're a fool!" said Ember. "You can't beat them all!"
"I will not die without a fight!"
"Try not dying at all!" Kranxx said as he smacked the norn on the back of the head. "Run!"
"This way!" Ember sprinted away from the column of ghosts. She moved with the lumbering grace of a lion, weaving her way between and over the bodies scattered along the ground.
"Dougal!" Riona reached for Dougal's shoulders. "We need to go!" She snatched Dougal's hand and pulled him along, following the charr. Dougal stumbled along after her as best he could, although his feet felt as if they were bound with stones.
"We can't outrun them!" said Riona. "Head back for the gates."
"Too many between there and us!" said Dougal. To the others he shouted, "Follow me! We're going to the palace!"
Riona shot Dougal a hard look, and he said, "The ghosts think as they did in life. They try not to leave the city itself. So they should not violate the king's chamber without approval." He grabbed her arm and hauled her along with him for a few steps until she was back up to speed. She punched him in the back as she finally matched his pace.
"You idiot!" she said. "Why did you wait? What did you see?"
Dougal bit his tongue. This wasn't the time for the kind of discussion such words demanded. Instead, he just ran.
They wound their way through the streets of the city, racing toward the royal chambers. Because Dougal knew the way, Ember and Gullik, still carrying Kranxx, slowed down for Riona and him to catch up. Now in the lead, Dougal sprinted straight for their goal, and hoped that it was still standing.
Ahead of them rose a pillar of light, the energies of the Foefire itself coalesced into a single blade raised against the sky. When Adelbern summoned the Foefire on the battlements, he opened a sinkhole down through the catacombs that laced the foundations of the city. From that sinkhole rose a tower of radiance, the lasting memory to his great spell.
They turned right before they reached the luminous pillar, snaking through narrow alleys half-filled with rubble, leaving the ghosts behind. At last they reached the open court before the palace itself.
Dougal's heart quailed for a moment, for the lower reaches of the palace were blocked, their entrances crushed, the upper floors pancaked onto the lower ones. A single long staircase reached up along an inner wall. Dougal checked his mental map and saw that it would lead to the royal chambers themselves.
Unfortunately, the staircase was guarded. A squad of ghostly soldiers stood there waiting for them. When they saw Ember, the guards at the gate drew their swords and charged at her. "Death to the invaders!!" they shouted. "Death! Death!"
"Is there any other way out of here?" Ember said as she drew her sword.
"No!" Dougal glanced back to see the soldiers they'd run from in the main square gaining on them fast. "We need to go through the guards! The royal chambers are at the top of the stairs." Dougal unsheathed his sword then, and the ebon blade seemed to hum in his hand.
"There are fewer of them ahead of us than behind," said Riona, her own blade drawn.
"Forward we go, then!" Dougal growled, turning back toward the steps and immediately running into Gullik's massive form. The norn grabbed Dougal to prevent him from tumbling backward.
"Hold him." Gullik pressed Kranxx into Dougal's arms. "Bear's nose! He's a good friend but a lousy passenger! I will hold back the ghosts for you."
"But what-"
Before Dougal could finish his thought, much less his sentence, the norn leaped past him, swinging his axe over his head. "All right!" he bellowed at the oncoming horde of ghosts. "Who wants me to send them to their eternal rest first?"
Riona grabbed Dougal and pulled him past Gullik as the norn pressed forward toward the bunched ranks of spirits. Above them, Ember had already begun a doomed battle with the ghosts guarding the gate. Her flashing blade and claws bit into their ephemeral forms, cutting through them like smoke. While this did not seem to cause the ghosts any obvious pain, after enough such blows they began to dissipate like fog, and hope leaped in Dougal's heart.
Kranxx shoved hard against Dougal's grip. "Put me down! Right now!"
"You don't stand a chance against the ghosts," said Dougal. "And quit squirming!"
"Of course I don't stand a chance, you idiot! But you do. Put me down!" Dougal set the asura down on the stair beside him. "Now get in there and use that sword of yours!"
Before Dougal could reply, one of the ghosts that Ember had dispatched re-formed from the swirling mists surrounding her. It spotted Dougal and charged straight at him, screaming, "Death to the invaders! Death! Death!"
Working on reflexes, Dougal brought up his sword and stabbed it straight through the ghost. The creature stopped cold, clutched at the blade for an insta
nt, then started to scream in pain. It dropped to the stairs and lay there for an instant before it entirely faded away.
Despite himself, Dougal smiled.
"Step aside, Ember!" he shouted. "I'm coming through!"
The charr twisted out of his way, moving with the powerful grace of a hunting cat. Dougal stepped up and slashed his weapon through the forms of three ghosts at once. Every one of them howled in protest and cringed at the weapon's touch, but after it had passed through them, they stood straight back up and threw themselves into the fight again.
Dougal cursed. "I'm hurting them, all right, but only while the blade is actually in them!"
"That might be good enough," Ember said. She shivered, nearly frozen from all the ghostly swords that had swung through her.
"Riona!" Dougal said. One of the ghost's swords sliced right through his sword and then through him. It felt like it was trying to freeze his organs. He groaned in pain, then said, "Grab Ember and make for the top of the stairs!"
"No!" she said. "We can't lose you!"
"I'll be right behind you," he said, slashing at the ghosts again, forcing them to keep their distance. "Promise!"
Snarling in protest but doing what she'd been asked, Riona took Ember by her arm, and the two of them raced around the mass of ghosts to the left as Dougal forced them to the right. Once Ember and Riona were past him, Dougal kept pressing in that direction, circling around until the ghosts no longer stood between him and the stairs up to the royal chambers.
Dougal was just about to break off the fight and race after the others when he realized that Kranxx hadn't gone with Riona and Ember. He looked down the stairs and saw Kranxx standing where he'd left him, still rummaging through his pack, hunting for one sort of gadget or another.
"Get moving!" Dougal called to the asura. "I can't do this much longer!"
"I have to have something in here to help him!" said Kranxx.
"Who?" But Dougal knew the answer as soon as the question left his lips. Still defending himself with his sword against increasingly wary ghosts, he gazed down past the creatures he was barely keeping at bay and spotted Gullik again, still taking on scores of the ghosts himself.
"By the Bear's bloody claws!" the norn bellowed as he swung his axe all about. "I will battle you until my dying breath! Whether sagas are sung of this day or not, no matter how fast you might finally kill me, you shall know you've been in the fight of your deaths!"
"Gullik!" shouted Dougal. "Break off and follow us!"
"And let them chase you down?" shouted Gullik, grinning from ear to ear. "Never!"
"The aquatic thunderator won't work," Kranxx said to himself. "I do have a darkness grenade, but I don't know if it's functional." He shook his head.
"Just get moving and get up here!" said Dougal.
The norn turned to Dougal and pointed up the stairs with his axe. "Remember me!" he said, and turned back to slashing apart the spirits. They streamed out in strands of fog beneath his blows, only to re-form moments later. Pressed on all sides now, Gullik bristled and began to transform into his ursine form.
"I have one last healing draught, but that's not- Aha! Wait!" Kranxx reached into his pack and yanked something out of one of the endless number of pockets in it.
"Yes!" he shouted, and flung the small orb into the center of the fray. Gullik grinned and turned to shout something. It might have been thanks.
Then the ball exploded in a ball of flame, the force of the blow driving both man and asura back against the stairs. When the conflagration cleared, there was sign of neither norn or the ghosts but only a shallow, scorched crater. Already the pale blue strands were re-forming into ghosts.
Kranxx stared at the devastation. "By the Eternal Alchemy! I used too much arcanic energy! I killed him! I thought it would help and I killed Gullik!"
The pair of ghosts nearest them, at the borders of the blast, re-formed the quickest. Dougal stabbed each of the ghosts right through the chest. After they retreated out of the reach of his blade, Dougal reached down and grabbed the panicked asura by the back of his collar. Then he turned and sprinted straight up the steps, dragging Kranxx along with him.
The staircase ascended forever, and Dougal could see Riona and Ember ahead, climbing the steep steps as fast as they could. Beneath him he could hear the entire city howl; looking down, he could see ghosts spilling from every doorway and trying to force themselves up the stairs behind them.
Dougal, bringing the still-frantic Kranxx along with him, dove through the wide-open doors at the top of the stairs, bursting into what his ancient map said were the royal chambers. They landed in a tangled ball in the center of the main chamber, and before Dougal could pull himself free, Ember and Riona grabbed them both and dragged them behind a tattered dressing screen that cut off the back half of the room from the front.
Dougal started to ask what was going on, but Ember clamped a hand over his mouth while Riona muzzled Kranxx. Dougal's eyes darted around and spotted a ghost standing right over them.
He cursed himself for believing that the city's soldiers would not follow them in here. Yet, a ghost stood there staring at him with a kind and gentle face.
The unexpected face stopped Dougal cold. The look in the ghost's eyes was not maddened or vicious. This ghost looked… sad.
Rather than armor, this ghost wore the rich and elegant clothes of a royal courtier. He was balding and potbellied, and his eyes bore the weight of having seen far too many things for too damned long. He carried no weapon-other than the handle of a ghostly knife still jutting from the wound in his chest.
Riona raised her blade, but Dougal held up a hand to stop her. Mortals and ghost viewed each other, and Dougal found his voice.
"Savione," he said. "You're the king's servant, Savione."
The ghost in ornate dress frowned and sniffed. "Chief courtier, thank you," said the ghost. "But I am Savione. And it is about time you got here. Or someone like you."
From the doorway near the head of the stairs, there arose the racket of the approaching mob. The ghost of Savione turned and walked back through the dressing screen, disturbing it less than a gentle breeze. Dougal could no longer see him, but the courtier's voice carried throughout the room.
"How dare you burst into the king's private quarters unannounced?" Savione said, his voice commanding and firm.
The ghost soldiers chanted at him, "There are invaders! We must protect Ascalon! We must protect the king!"
Savione scoffed at them. "I have been in these chambers this entire day, and have seen no brigands, no raiders, and no bandits. Off with you!"
The ghosts' voices became more subdued and confused. "We saw invaders!" said one, but they were unsure of themselves now.
Savione did not raise his voice, but his words dripped with menace. "Leave now, or I shall summon His Majesty, our great King Adelbern, to deal with your intrusion personally. Do not tarry, but hunt your invaders elsewhere."
The ghosts were cowed by the invoking of the king's name, then encouraged by the idea that the invaders were still at large somewhere else in the city. The soldiers' chanting faded as they left the chambers and went off in search of prey someplace outside the king's private rooms.
The ghost poked his head through the screen. "I believe it's safe to speak now," he said as he emerged wholly before the others. "Their dedication to the king is nearly as mindless as their bloodlust, and I can confuse them easily."
Dougal got to his feet and stared at the ghost, stunned to see that something of the man had survived for so long.
"See," Ember said, elbowing Dougal in the shoulder. "Fireburn was right. Savione."
The courtier didn't smile-he frowned less-but it had the same effect. To Dougal he said, "Yes. I am Savione, in the… well, not flesh, exactly. But I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, sir…?"
Dougal blinked. "Keane. Dougal Keane."
"Keane." The ghost's eyes lit up. "No relation to Lieutenant Dorion Keane?"
Do
ugal's breath caught in his chest. "Ancestor."
The ghost nodded thoughtfully. "Yes. I think I see some resemblance. A good man. We could have used him here, but other duties called."
"How is this possible?" asked Riona. "I thought all of the ghosts in Ascalon City had been driven mad by the Foefire?"
"Remember the story I told," said Ember. "This is the Savione I spoke of. He was dead before Adelbern had used Magdaer to ignite the Foefire. I assume that this man certainly had unfinished business to attend to."
"This reunion is all very touching," Kranxx said, his voice rising to a furious stage whisper, "but we have bigger problems right now!"
"As long as they do not hear or see you, the soldiers will not enter here," said Savione. "They fear the king's wrath more than anything."
"Is he here?" Dougal's head snapped around as he looked for any sign of Adelbern.
"Oh, dear, no," said Savione. "He patrols the battlements of the North Wall night and day, waiting for any sign of another charr assault." At this, the ghost gave Ember a sidelong glance.
The wailing of the ghosts outside grew louder as these thoughts spun through Dougal's head. "Those ghosts seem like they're still hungry for blood," he said.
Savione grimaced with regret. "I've rarely seen them this agitated. No outsiders have ever gotten this close to the royal chambers since the Foefire. It is possible that they will eventually choose to ignore my orders and charge the tower on their own initiative if they realize you are here."
Riona frowned. "I wonder if they would be so quick to follow your commands if they knew you betrayed your king. If the charr's story is true, you fought against him, with the charr at the very gates."
"Untrue and unkind." Savione looked down his nose at Riona, offended. "I was doing my best to save the soldiers His Majesty was determined to murder! Adelbern was desperate to keep the charr from taking Ascalon City, and he was prepared to do anything to stop it. He was furious at our soldiers for failing to stop the charr advance, and thought them cowards."
