Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon (27 page)

“I don’t think it’s us they’re afraid of,” said Riona. “They just don’t want to come in here.”

“Maybe they know something we don’t,” Dougal said as he glanced around them.

“There’s another warband coming from the northeast,” said Ember.

“And that looks like one in the southwest,” said Riona.

“We need to keep moving,” Dougal said. Another distant pop and another shot puffed the earth next to him. “Right now.” The three warbands, all on the closer side of the tortured strip of land, now sounded horns to each other. Their message was clear.

Without a word, Ember turned to the northwest and started off again. The others fell into step behind her, the norn and his asura passenger last.

“By the Wolf’s whimper,” Gullik growled, “only cowards run from such a fight!”

“Don’t think of it as running away from that fight,” Kranxx said. “Think of it as running toward a bigger one.”

The norn let out a deep chuckle. “I
do
enjoy your wisdom!”

“I still don’t like it,” Dougal said, keeping pace with Riona and Ember. “What could be in here that would be so terrifying that it would keep three warbands of charr from coming after us?”

Riona smirked at this. “Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”

The gunfire behind them intensified, but at this range they were minimal targets, and the worst it did was shatter some of the glass foliage near them. None of the shots came close to hitting anyone, but it didn’t seem as if the charr were trying very hard.

“Hold it!” Dougal said.

Ember skidded to a halt in the shattered purple grass, and the others following her all did the same. “What is
it?” the charr said.

Dougal shaded his eyes and gazed to the southwest. “There,” he said. “They’re not shooting at us anymore. Look.”

The two charr warbands on the southern edge of the Brand had joined together and were busy unloading their rifles into a crystalline hill hunkered to their east. It was a larger target, Dougal noted, but had no effect on them and their flight.

“I haven’t seen anything this odd since I stumbled upon that hylek fertility ritual!” said Gullik.

Dougal knew then exactly what was happening. He’d heard tales of minions created by the Elder Dragons to execute their will—and anyone who might trespass upon their lands. Here in the Dragonbrand, they stood squarely in the Crystal Dragon’s territory. Its passage had scarred this land and claimed it as its own. It stood to reason the creatures that lived here would belong to the Crystal Dragon too.

“We need to get out of here right now!” Dougal said, grabbing Ember’s shoulder.

She shrugged him off with a growl. “We should get to the far side of that hill for cover.”

“No,” Dougal said. “We need to head in the other direction as fast as possible.”

“We can’t go back to the south,” said Riona. “Those warbands will tear us to pieces.”

Killeen put a hand on Dougal’s arm. “What’s wrong?” she said.

Dougal stabbed a finger in the direction of the hill, which had started to shudder. “That!”

As they watched, the hill continued to quiver as if shaken by an earthquake, although the land that they stood on seemed as solid as ever. A terrible noise sprang from the hill. It sounded like thousands of glasses shattering all at once.

Then the hill raised its head and opened its eyes.

Run!” snapped Riona. “Run for the northern edge!”

Ember sped off to the north at a dead sprint, with Riona chasing straight after her. Dougal took Killeen’s hand and pulled her along as he followed them.

Gullik stood and watched the hill rise. Kranxx pounded on his head. “Time to go!” the asura said.

“Raven’s beak!” the norn said. “It’s beautiful!” He hefted his axe before him. “This shall be my greatest triumph—or the tragic end of my tale!”

Dougal glanced back over his shoulder and saw the norn still standing there. “Gullik!” he shouted. “Come on!”

“Join me here or farewell!” the norn shouted. “From this foe, I shall not turn!”

Dougal hauled up short, and Killeen along with him. “Damned heroes,” Dougal said. “He’s going to get them both killed.”

The hill shuddered one last time and then clambered to its feet. Although shaped like a man, the resemblance ended there. It stood three times as tall as the norn and appeared to have been formed from a stack
of priceless diamonds the size of boulders. Twin spots sparkled in its face where eyes would be, but it bore no mouth, nose, or ears. What it had been before the passing of Kralkatorrik was unknown, but now it was that dragon’s champion, its guardian of this land of twisted black rock and crystal forests.

The creature’s limbs scraped against each other as it pulled itself to its full height, and the horrible noise set Dougal’s teeth on edge. Gullik stood there before it, his rumbling laughter reverberating in the crystals all around as he thumbed his axe.

“We talked about discretion, remember?” Kranxx yelled at the norn. “We have bigger things to do!”

Gullik leaned backward as he craned his neck to look up at the unfolding creature, and laughed. “Bigger than that? I think not!”

Unbalanced, Kranxx smacked Gullik on the head one more time and then slipped from the norn’s shoulders.

“He’s insane!” the asura shouted as he raced after Dougal and Killeen.

“True,” Dougal said with grudging admiration, “but I wouldn’t bet against him.”

Once Kranxx was clear, Gullik stalked toward the dragon’s minion, hunting for the opening for his first blow. He moved left, then right, and watched how the minion tracked his movements. Anxious to get to the battle, Gullik chopped down a crystal sapling in his path. It collapsed in a shower of shards.

The minion locked on the norn with its glowing eyes, then leaned toward him and charged.

Each of the minion’s steps thundered against the crystal terrain and brought cracks of lightning crashing down nearby. Although it seemed slow, its long legs covered ground fast, and it was upon Gullik before Dougal could blink.

The minion drew back a blunt-fisted arm and brought it down at Gullik with devastating speed. The norn leaped to one side to avoid the blow, and it smashed into the ground instead.

Before the minion could ready another attack, Gullik took his axe in a double-handed grip and swung it at the creature’s leg. The limb cracked straight through at the knee, and when the minion tried to take a step forward, it left its lower leg behind.

Unbalanced by the surprising loss of its leg, the creature swayed for a moment and then toppled forward. Dougal saw what was about to happen and shouted for Gullik to get out of the way. The minion was too large, though, and the norn too slow, and the bulk of the creature came down right on top of him, crushing him under its phenomenal weight.

Dougal stared at the scene in shock. He had thought Gullik was crazy for trying to take on the creature, but somewhere in his heart he hadn’t believed that the much-larger-than-life norn could lose the fight. Especially not so quickly.

Kranxx smacked Dougal on the leg as he passed, then sprinted away. “Run!” the asura called back over his shoulder. Dougal turned back toward the hulking beast, looking for some sign that Gullik had survived the creature collapsing upon him.

That was when he realized that Killeen was no longer beside him. The sylvari had raced forward, and was now standing before the minion, carving the air in an intricate pattern to fashion a spell.

Dougal stopped and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout at the sylvari. “Killeen! Forget it! He’s gone!”

“No!” she said, still concentrating on her spell, her face creased in concentration. “He can’t die. I won’t let that happen!”

Glowing blackness stretched from Killeen’s hands to encircle the minion, turning the shadows of its flesh to a brilliant white and its glittering hide to night. The creature froze for a moment, then threw its arms over its head as if letting loose a silent scream.

Hope soared in Dougal’s heart, but it came crashing down an instant later when the blackness around the creature cracked, and the minion slammed its arms back down onto the twisted landscape, unfazed by the incantation.

Dougal glanced back to see Riona, Ember, and Kranxx in the distance. They had stopped running, probably locked in their own argument about returning. He turned to see the minion bearing down on Killeen, slowed only slightly by the fact that Gullik had removed one of its legs below the knee. The sylvari scrambled backward, but even on its knees the minion was gaining on her.

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.