Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [30]
Live destroyers.
They hunkered in an alcove of the cavern wall, their lava figures barely flickering with fire. But the flaming sword seemed to awaken them. One destroyer shifted, its insectile head rotating toward him. Fire blazed from eye sockets and mandibles. The beast jolted up, joints liquefying to lava and arms rising.
Rytlock took a step back.
The other two destroyers shifted, too, standing.
Oh, come to me, heart of the wyld . . .
That wasn’t a memory. That was Caithe’s voice.
Two more destroyers rose. Now there were five of them.
Rytlock could take five destroyers. He’d be a little charred by the end of it, but—
Then about ten more stalked out of the alcove.
He turned and ran. These were destroyers, and there were too many of them, but he could even the odds if he found Logan and Caithe.
Entombed within a world of fire . . .
“Not yet, I’m not!”
Logan heard the bray of a drunken mule. “What was that?”
“Someone’s coming,” Caithe replied.
The air shook with massive footfalls.
“By the sound of it, a bunch of someones.”
“Maybe destroyers,” Logan said. He was using his shirt to hold the broken crystal in place. “Do you see the Grove?”
Caithe turned back to the archway as images flashed, one after another: a desolate tundra . . . a deep-hewn canyon . . . a storm-tossed sea. “No.”
Logan looked behind them where a fiery light glowed along the palace wall. “We’re just going to have to jump for it.”
“We don’t want to end up in the sea.”
“Watch for a good place.”
. . . a smoldering battlefield . . . a calving glacier . . . a trackless swamp . . .
Logan looked back again and saw that the fiery light came from Sohothin, clutched in the pumping fist of Rytlock. The charr ran full out down the avenue with an army of destroyers right behind. “Just about anyplace!”
. . . a blazing desert . . . a venting caldera . . . a green glade—
Caithe grabbed Logan’s arm and hauled. “Now!”
He barged after her through the flashing gate and tumbled down on a grassy meadow. A moment later, the magical membrane burst apart again, emitting Rytlock at a run. He stumbled and rolled beside them.
“Together again,” Logan noted.
Rytlock had no time to reply, though, as the gate popped thrice more before closing.
Three destroyers had vaulted through the magical meniscus, and they landed in the meadow.
LAIR OF THE DRAGONSPAWN
Beneath a frigid blue sky, Eir led her wolf comrade and her metal allies. Steel feet crashed on glacial ice. Cogs ground and servos whined. Stone heads and silver skins reflected triangles of light across ice-choked peaks.
They marched up a valley with a glacier running through it. The center section was smooth like a frozen river, but the outer sections had cracked into countless parallel crevices. A thousand feet ahead, a wide cave slanted into the glacier. It didn’t seem so much a cave as the mouth of a slain titan, giant icicles like fangs jutting all around it.
From Big Snaff, a metallic voice spoke. “Those look daunting.”
“They’re worse than you think,” Eir replied. “Look within the cave.”
Creatures paced there—five-hundred-pound wolves of ice. Hackles bristled across their shoulders, and claws cracked the ice beneath them. With eyes that glowed blue, they stared out at Eir and her comrades.
“They’re corrupted wolves that once defended our homeland,” Eir said. “Now they defend the despoiler.”
Snaff’s golem shuddered, taking a step back.
“What’s wrong?” asked Zojja.
“There are more than wolves there.”
Staring through the huge eyes of his golem, Snaff saw giant, white bats dropping from the ceiling of the cave. They spread icy wings and shrieked, echolocating their prey.
“Let’s take them on!” Eir roared, charging.
Garm galloped beside her.
“Charge!” Snaff roared as the Bigs followed.
Eir and Garm reached the ice cave first and bounded within. Icy bats swarmed them, but her axes and his teeth ripped their wings away. Bats