Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [62]
He expected Kranxx to lead them in the direction the soldiers came from, but instead he plunged them deeper into the alleyway, into a maze of small back passages that snaked between granaries and shuttered workshops. Once they crossed a major thoroughfare, then ducked back into alleyways that even Dougal was unfamiliar with. He figured they were heading west through the city, until at last they reached a dead end with a hatch nearly flush with the ground at its base.
Kranxx pulled out a key and fitted it into a lock on the hatch. He motioned to Gullik, who began struggling to open the heavy iron lid.
“Do we really have to go in there?” Dougal asked, peering down into the blackness. He pinched his nose so tight that it hurt, and the stench that escaped from the hatch still made his eyes water.
“It’s the only way to get out of Ebonhawke without having to deal with the Vanguard,” Kranxx said. “You could approach the commander and ask him permission to depart, but—given the nature of your mission and the fact that he’s probably looking for you by now—he’d probably toss you into one of our lovely prison cells.”
At the mention of Ebonhawke’s prison, Dougal glanced at Riona. In the growing light of the morning, he could see the muscles in her face tighten, but she showed no other reaction.
“It’s too bad the walls are so high,” Gullik grunted, straining as he fitted his fingers under an edge and lifted. “And that you’re all so small. Were we all norn warriors, we could just scale the wall and be gone.”
Despite herself, Riona snorted. “You’d be filled with arrows and rifle shot before we made it halfway to the top. And then the charr would get to shoot at you on the way down.”
Kranxx’s lantern’s light cast deep shadows on the asura’s face. “The Ebon Vanguard built this place to stand against the charr forever,” he said. “They drew on the experience Ascalon accumulated during the construction of the Northern Wall, and they’ve had over two hundred years of keeping the charr out of the city to help them figure out where the weak parts are and what they need to do to keep them plugged.”
“Then how have you noticed something they haven’t?” asked Dougal.
Kranxx allowed himself a chuckle. “Because I’m asura, and they’re human. They think in terms of reiterations. They build something that they hope will stand, then they shore it up the best they can in the places they get wrong. People with brains think not in terms of single bits, like walls, but in terms of systems—especially interlocking systems and how they work together. The thing that lets Ebonhawke survive isn’t the wall or the Vanguard. It’s the asura gate. Without that, the charr would have been able to starve the humans out of here long ago. With it, the humans have managed a record-breaking stand against a truly determined foe.”
“Granted,” said Ember, whose hair bristled at the mention of her people’s failure to wipe this settlement from Ascalon. “Many charr believe that Ebonhawke is impregnable, and taking it a waste of effort better spent elsewhere. The strongest dissenters are among the Iron Legion. This is why they have taken over the siege.”
“And with their machines, they might someday manage to do it,” said Riona, louder than she needed to. “One more reason we must work for this truce.”
“Breaking down a wall isn’t all that challenging, children,” said Kranxx. “It just requires the right machines, and the charr have developed many crude but effective machines that could manage it. The trick is getting those machines into the right places. The Vanguard has gotten extremely good at keeping the charr from reaching those places.”
Gullik hefted the iron hatch again and it rose another couple inches.