Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [81]
Sometime after midnight, Ember signaled for a halt. The others froze, then followed her to hunker down in the shadows of a skeletal charr war wagon, its frame long since scavenged for parts and left rusting in the moonlight. Silently she pointed toward a torch she had seen burning in the night. As they remained hidden, it wound closer.
Dougal glanced over to see Gullik fingering his axe, ready to leap into action at the slightest hint that they had been spotted. Killeen put her hand on the norn’s wrist—which looked like a child reaching out to hold her father’s hand—and he stopped.
As the torch drew closer, Dougal heard a number of charr voices growling and snarling at each other. The voices grew louder for a while and then tapered off as the torchlight faded in the distance. When it seemed safe, Dougal tapped Ember on the elbow, and she nodded and stood up. They spoke in whispers.
“That was a patrol from the Iron Legion,” she said.
“Were they looking for us?” asked Dougal.
Ember shook her head. “No. Not yet.”
Dougal had to agree. There was no tension among the Iron Legion charr. They moved like night watchmen making their regular rounds, neither expecting trouble nor encountering any.
They waited another ten minutes before Ember gave the signal to head out.
As a gray dawn threatened to break over the mountains far to the east, Ember steered them to higher ground and found a cave for them to hide in.
“Wolf’s haunches, I do not care for burrowing into a dredge-hole!” Gullik said.
Riona nodded. “If a patrol finds us here, we’ll have no place to run.”
“This is Ascalon,” said Ember. “We charr own every bit of it but the place we came from and the place we’re going to. There are no places for us to run.”
“At least it will be cool,” said Kranxx. “My next research project must include methods for capturing the incredible heat that norn give off when exerting themselves.”
“And the cave mouth faces south, so I can see the sun,” Killeen said with a smile.
“And there’s a great view,” said Dougal. He gazed back over where they’d been. Far to the south, he could still see the peaks of the mountains in which Ebonhawke nestled. The mountains had given way to gentler foothills, like the one they were holed up in now. Once there had been forests here, but the war had ravaged the earth, and now verdant grasses had covered these rolling lands.
Dougal had not come this way out to Ascalon City the first time around—five years earlier, he and his friends had crossed through the Shiverpeaks instead—but he had studied maps of Ascalon for much of his life. On the other side of the hill, he knew, the land would become even easier until he and the others would find themselves racing across wide, open plains. Then they would be at the most vulnerable, with few places to hide; but if they stuck to moving at night, he thought they might be able to manage it.
“Get as much rest as you can,” said Ember. “We will move out at noon.”
“What? Why?” asked Dougal. Before he could say more, Gullik cut him off with a tremendous snore that echoed through the cave.
Riona nodded and spoke up to be heard over the rumbling. “I thought you said that traveling during the day would be dangerous.”
“Yes, but we are close to the Dragonbrand,” Ember said. “We would be better off not attempting to cross it at night.”
Riona caught Dougal’s eye and signaled that she would take the first shift today, along with Ember. He was too tired to realize that there wouldn’t be a second, and he leaned against the back of the cave and tried to ignore the norn’s snoring.
The time passed so fast that when Dougal woke up, he felt as if he’d not slept at all. He felt a hand covering his mouth, and his eyes flew wide open to see Riona hunched before him, a finger pressed to her lips. After Dougal nodded that he understood, Riona removed her hand from his face, and he sat up. She stood up and beckoned him to follow her. They crept past Ember, who watched them silently with her large eyes, then rose to follow them.
Riona led Dougal to the mouth of