Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [75]
Before that could happen, Kranxx stood up and threw something into the middle of the clearing. It fizzed and sparked as it rolled to land near Gullik’s hind legs.
“An asura invention!” Gullik said. “Would you look at that?”
“Eyes!” Kranxx shouted at the top of his lungs.
Dougal remembered to close his eyes tight. The flash from the device’s detonation was so bright that even through his eyelids it nearly blinded him.
Dougal blinked away the few dots before his eyes and saw the charr all around the clearing clutching their faces and snarling in pain and frustration. This would not be a fair fight, he knew, but it never had been.
Dougal’s blade slid easily into the neck of the charr who had cut him and then came right back out again, along with the charr’s last breath. Another charr came stumbling at Dougal, swinging his sword blindly while homing in on his dying friend’s final cry. Dougal steeled himself to the task, waited for the right moment, then ran the charr through.
Riona slew three of the charr herself, with the quick efficiency of a warrior who had seen far too much of battle and wanted this one to end quickly. Killeen intoned a spell that caused three more of their assailants to rot to death before her eyes. Kranxx spilled no blood, instead rooting around in his pack for some other trick to use. Gullik regained his natural form, pulled his axe from Bladebreaker’s chest, and used it to split the last of the enemy charr in half.
Ember stood amid the carnage, roaring in frustration. She snatched up Bladebreaker’s sword and waved it at the dying charr, but she did not use it against them.
“This did not have to happen!” she shouted at the other charr, not caring if any of them could still hear her. “You did not have to die. If you had just listened to me, we could have been on our way, and you would all have lived to try your luck against Ebonhawke another day.” Then she pierced Bladebreaker with his own blade.
Again silence in the valley, save for the falling mire behind them.
Dougal came over to stand near Ember, although he stayed out of reach of her blade. “I know how you feel. I felt the same about the Vanguard in the sewer,” he said.
“That’s nothing like this,” Ember said.
“Except that it is exactly,” Riona said from over near the pond. She wiped her blade clean before returning it to its scabbard.
“No, it’s not,” Ember snarled. “You regret killing your people. I regret that my people were so foolish. Let us leave them to the scavengers.”
“Not all of them are foolish,” said Dougal, and as if to punctuate his words, distant horns sounded: a charr unit on the march.
“That’s another patrol of the Blood Legion,” said Ember. “They expect a response.” She moved among the bodies and pulled a slightly bent warhorn from among the corpses. She raised it to her lips.
Riona took a step forward, but Dougal stopped her from saying anything. Ember let out a long, low blast, repeating the notes from the first horn they heard. There was a pause, then the distant horns sounded again, apparently in a different direction. Farther off, there was a similar response.
“That bought us some time,” said Ember. “They won’t know anything is amiss until the day’s end, when the warbands return to camp. When they find that this warband has been slaughtered, they’ll set out to hunt us down and kill us all.”
Dougal glanced up. The sun had finally topped their canyon valley and turned the spattering waterfall into a rainbow of gems. They would have to find a secure place quickly.
“In that case,” he said, “we’d better get moving.”
The fetid stream from the sewer pond seeped into a dank mire before they even left the valley. They hugged the mountain’s foothills, trying not to attract any attention while putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the grated sewer pipe.
The day was warmer now, and the filth that permeated their