Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [110]
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