Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [101]
The companions stood, ready to attack, but they couldn’t see the dragon—only claws the size of the asura and enormous eyes floating in the darkness.
The beast spoke again, her ancient voice rattling through them. “I know why you have come.”
“We’ve come to stop your master from rising,” Eir responded.
A laugh answered, quiet but shaking the sanctuary: “You cannot stop it.”
“But we can kill you!” Rytlock roared, charging with Sohothin raised.
Suddenly, out of the darkness, crystalline scales and fangs and claws burst from the colonnade and smashed into Rytlock and his companions, hurling them down. Eir hadn’t even time to loose her arrows before the beast’s rocklike head struck her and Garm and threw them across the floor. Logan swung his hammer against the massive shoulder of the beast in the moment before it flung him to the floor. The dragon bashed against Big Zojja and Big Snaff, who toppled and crashed to their backs. Only Caithe escaped the dragon’s assault, flattening herself as the wyrm rushed by overhead.
Destiny’s Edge skidded like toys across the floor.
Gigantic wings grasped the air. Glint wheeled within her sanctuary and landed on the other side. Before her, the companions lay stunned and gasping. Glint towered over them. Her head was mantled in crystalline spikes, sharper than swords, and her body was a mass of muscle and scale. Each leg was as wide as a millennial oak, and each foot was tipped in razor claws. Most horrible of all were her wings—stretching from one side of the sanctum to the other.
“Form up!” Eir shouted as she staggered to her feet.
Her friends struggled to gather.
Glint reared on her hind legs and roared. The sound solidified the air.
The companions fell again.
Only Eir remained standing, gripping her ears to block out the roar. As soon as the dragon’s shriek ended, Eir snagged three new arrows from her quiver and nocked them and drew back her bow. These were explosive charges, designed to pierce dragon armor. “You will not raise your master!”
Glint’s eyes flashed fury, and her front legs pounded the floor. She stalked forward, claws scoring the marble at her feet. “I have no wish to raise him.”
Eir’s hand didn’t waver, but neither did she shoot. “You can’t deceive me, serpent!”
“I can’t—but a wretch from the Nightmare Court can?” asked Glint.
Eir’s bow trembled as the dragon stalked toward her. “We kill dragon champions!”
The dragon halted, gazing at the explosive arrows aimed at her eye. “Soon, you will get a chance to kill a true dragon.” With a sudden lash of her tail, she batted the bow and arrows away. They skidded out of reach.
Eir’s hands trembled, numb, but she remained standing.
“How little you remember,” growled Glint. “How little you know.”
“We know who you are!”
“Do you?” roared the dragon, rearing up and spreading her wings through the vault. “I am Glint, Keeper of the Flameseeker Prophecies, Protector of the Forgotten, Foe of the Lich Lord, and Downfall of the Titans! Three thousand years ago, I was set here as a guardian of the world. Three hundred years ago, I welcomed heroes such as yourselves, hailing them as the Chosen who would destroy the titans and save the world. But did they remember? Did not the very heroes that I sent return to battle me again? And now you come to slay me?”
“Do you know who we are?” Eir shouted back. “We are Destiny’s Edge, Slayers of the Dragonspawn, Ruination of Morgus Lethe, Damnation of the Destroyer of Life. We have crippled Jormag and Zhaitan and Primordus in their very lairs, and we will not stand aside while you raise yet another Elder Dragon to ravage the world!”
“I know who you are, Eir Stegalkin.” Glint dropped her foreclaws to the floor again and stared into Eir’s eyes. “I know the fight you have fought and the damage you have done to dragonkind. More, I know the fight that is ahead of you, and your vanishing hope of success.”
“We will succeed!”
“If you stand together, you will,” Glint said, watching as the other