Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [82]
Dougal signaled for Riona to follow him back into the cave. When they reached Ember, they spoke in whispers.
“They’re ghosts,” Dougal said. “They must have been working the fields around here when Adelbern brought down the Foefire.”
Riona rasped. “And their spirits have been trapped out here for over two centuries. Horrible.”
“They seem harmless,” said Ember.
Dougal shook his head. “Anything but. I run into a lot of ghosts in my line of work. Most restless spirits have some sort of reason for hanging around a place: an unfinished task, a wrong that needs righting, and so on. They’re often coherent, and you can hold a reasonable conversation with them. They can be obsessive, or angry, but they’re sane—sane for ghosts, at least.”
“And those two are not?” asked Riona.
“The spirits created by the Foefire are frozen in time. To them, it’s still the day of the Foefire, Adelbern is still their king, and the charr are still threatening at the gates.”
“Like in Ebonhawke today,” said Riona softly, but both Dougal and Ember ignored her.
Dougal continued. “When they run into someone still alive, they see that person as charr, or at best an ally of the charr. It doesn’t matter who or what the person really is. It could be Queen Jennah herself, or a sylvari. To them, every person who invades their space is charr.”
“The Foefire killed every human in the entire country,” Ember said. “The Sorcerer-King’s atrocity extended far beyond his city’s walls.”
Dougal nodded. “It affected every bit of the nation except for Ebonhawke.”
“What should we do about them?” Riona asked.
“Nothing, unless they come into the cave,” Dougal said. “We don’t need a fight with them.”
“That’s too bad,” Ember said. She moved back into the cave and picked up Bladebreaker’s sword. The two humans followed her.
“You can’t tell me you’re going to go hunt those ghosts down,” Riona said, shocked.
“I don’t need to,” Ember said, pointing her snout over Dougal’s shoulder. “They’re already here.”
As Dougal spun about, the two spirits entered the cave and froze there in its mouth. They looked much as Dougal supposed they had in their breathing days, but with every ounce of life drained out of them. They were pale reflections of their former selves, and they trailed wisps of pale bluish ectoplasm behind them as if blasted by a wind only they could feel. It made them look as if they were constantly burning, and the way their faces contorted with rage and pain only added to that impression.
“Charr!” the old shepherd’s ghost said. He brought his crooked staff forward and unleashed an inhuman screech.
“Kill them!” The young shepherd drew the sword at his hip and charged forward, matching the other ghost’s cry in a horrible harmony that Dougal feared might make his ears bleed.
The others in the cave awoke in an instant. None of them, including Dougal and Riona, could do a thing before Ember threw herself between the two ghosts and began slashing about, her blade and claws cutting clean through their spectral forms as if they were no more than mist.
The ghosts’ twinned screeches rose higher and higher in pitch until Dougal felt his eyes start to roll back in their sockets. Ember’s snarls and growls added to the cacophony.
Ember yelped as the ghosts’ pale weapons passed through her, not breaking her skin but harming her just the same. The ghosts screamed as her claws and sword cut through them. Her strikes drew no blood, but with every swipe they dragged away more of the glowing ectoplasm that made up the ghostly figures, diminishing them more each time.
Riona grabbed her own sword, but Dougal held the others back with a raised