Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [59]
“She is up on the battlements,” said Killeen.
“I thought you said the Dream wouldn’t tell you where she was,” said Dougal.
“I still have eyes,” said Killeen. “She’s up there.” And Dougal followed her pointing hand to show Riona, in her traveling cloak, up on one of the city’s interior walls, looking out past the gates.
Dougal set off at once, Killeen following him. He knew the mazework of stairs and streets that was Ebonhawke. The nearest stair up was close at hand
The city itself had been a small fortress, nestled in the southern juncture of the Shiverpeaks and the Blazeridge mountain range. The steep mountains on several sides provided an ideal location just north of the Crystal Desert. With the Searing, its location grew in importance, and King Adelbern of Ascalon saw it as an ultimate bastion against the charr incursions. In the end, before the Foefire, he dispatched the Ebon Vanguard here to reinforce it.
And reinforce it they did. They spread the initial fortress walls outward, continuing to build as they took more territory against the regular charr raids. They erected the mighty Hawkgates at the northern entrance to the city. They mined the hills behind the walls for stone and made more living space for the refugees from the abandoned human cities to the north. And they trained their growing populace in the dangers that stood right outside their gates, from the siege engines of the charr.
Dougal knew where Riona stood, and why she was there. From that internal wall she could see over the lower walls, past the Hawkgates and all the way to the Fields of Ruin beyond. He climbed the stairs three at a time, leaving the sylvari far behind him.
“Riona,” he said, and she jumped at the sound of his voice. She had not heard him approach.
“Dougal!” she said, her voice confused for a moment, almost weak. “I didn’t hear you.”
“We should go,” he said. “Kranxx is back, and we don’t have much time.”
“I know,” she agreed. “But look.”
He followed her stare and could see it as well, and the sight stopped him in his tracks, as it always did.
Far to the north and west of the city were the front lines of the charr siege of Ebonhawke. They were positioned at the exact range of the human defensive ballistas—not one foot closer or farther away.
The front line of the charr entrenchments was a line of war wagons, parked in their positions for so long that trees had grown up next to them, providing shade for their crews. The war wagons were mobile walls of metal, each crowned with a spearlike palisade. Joined together in the field, they were an instant fortification for the charr military camps.
Behind them were the camps themselves, and with them a variety of siege engines and military units. Here were siege devourers, living engines of destruction, also equipped with ballista and cannon. In years past, when the charr improved their range, they pelted the walls and closer human districts with heavy stones and burning pitch. When the human machines could reach them, they pulled back farther and established new lines. The Iron Legion, the legion that had the most interest in engines of destruction, had been in charge of the siege for over a century, and used the city as a testing ground for its latest developments.
There were flames along the line: bonfires and forges and cooking fires for the awakening military units. There was the sound of distant horns—loud, blaring trumpets—and drums. The charr were waking to war as well.
Dougal looked out and saw what he had seen in his youth: the front lines of the war with the charr. In his days and nights here, in the cauldron of war, every day there had been sallies from the fortress and assaults on the walls. It was a hard, brutal life, and one became hard in return.
Or one left, as he and the others did. Leaving Riona behind.
Killeen had caught up with them. “We were worried,” she said to Riona. “The others are waiting.”
Riona shook her head and said, “I don’t know.”
“We should go,” Dougal repeated,