Ghosts of Ascalon (guild wars) Read online

  "What about the rest of them?" Riona said. "Do we just leave them like this? To be eaten by the rats?"

  Dougal gave her a pained shrug. He shared her anguish, but he didn't see what they could do to fix it. "We can't burn them down here, and we can't bury them in stone. Someone will come looking for them soon enough." He grimaced. "We need to be as far away from here as we can be by then, if only so we aren't forced to thin the Vanguard's numbers even more."

  Killeen put the shambling, dead Wynne in the lead. The sylvari followed right after her, with Kranxx on her heels. Riona trailed after them, and Dougal remained in the back of the line of people who could fit onto the walkway. Trudging through the stream, Ember and then Gullik swept along behind the rest of them.

  They made their way through the last section of the sewer, which seemed to wind on forever. Dougal kept peering into the darkness, hoping to see even the faintest glow of light.

  The first clue he had that they were near the exit was the way the walls of the tunnel seemed to vibrate in a tone lower than his ears could hear. He could feel it in the air, though, and eventually through the soles of his boots.

  The silent thrumming slowly grew in pitch and volume until it became a dull roar. This, Dougal knew, must be the sound of the stream spilling out of the tunnel and tumbling down onto the mountainside beyond.

  "We should be coming up on it soon," Kranxx said. Dougal detected a hint of worry in the asura's voice.

  "You don't know? Haven't you been here before?" asked Riona.

  "Of course not," said Kranxx. "Don't you know how dangerous this is? I've studied the maps many times, though."

  Dougal did not find that reassuring. He was about to say something about it when Wynne disappeared.

  The walkway in front of them had tilted under their weight. Pitching forward, it had thrown Wynne into the fast-moving waters. She floundered about at the surface for a moment, flapping her dead arms in some horrible mockery of an attempt to swim, and then disappeared beneath the surface.

  Killeen screamed as she nearly toppled in after her undead servant. When the walkway tipped downward, she lost her balance and spun her arms in a vain attempt to recover it. Moving faster than Dougal had thought he could, Kranxx leaned forward, bending at the waist, and tapped Killeen on the shoulder with the hook attached to his back.

  Killeen managed to snag the hook with her hand, but instead of the hook hauling her back, her weight pulled Kranxx forward, dragging him along to share her fate. However, this gave Dougal enough time to react, and he pushed past Riona to snag the asura by the top of his pack. For a moment he thought he might tumble in after the others, and the trap would manage to kill all three of them at once. But he dug in his heels and leaned back hard, bringing their forward progress to a halt. With Riona's help, he yanked both Kranxx and Killeen back to a solid part of the walkway, where they all collapsed in a heap.

  "The bottom of the stream must drop off just ahead too," said Ember. "I can feel the undertow from here."

  "Thanks for saying something before it became a problem," Riona said as she struggled to catch her breath.

  Dougal checked to make sure the others were all right, then knelt down to examine the floor and see what had happened. Kranxx stood next to him, giving him plenty of light to work with.

  There was a hinge on the floor, almost impossible to see, especially by a lantern's light. Dougal recognized the type of trap they'd triggered, and he cursed.

  "Bear's breath! What's wrong now?" Gullik asked. "This filth is too cold to just stand here in it!"

  "Lots of traps only work once," Dougal said. "This one resets itself automatically. From this hinge here onward, the walkway is actually a ramp. A set of counterweights underneath it holds it up horizontally, right up until there's enough weight on the end of the ramp. Then the ramp tips forward and dumps you right into the worst part of the sludge."

  "And then you die," said Ember.

  Dougal shook his head. "And then you find yourself trapped against the grating that covers the end of the tunnel, held up against it by the force of thousands of pounds of filthy water pressing you into it until you drown."

  "And then you die," said Killeen.

  Dougal nodded. "And then you're held there until your body rots enough for the water pressure to tear you into pieces so small that you flow out through the grate with the rest of Ebonhawke's waste."

  Dougal pointed at Kranxx's glowing light. "Can you put that out?"

  Kranxx pulled a heavy sack from his pack and hooded the stone with it, blocking its glow. Dougal stared ahead into the darkness until his eyes adjusted to it.

  "Yes," he said, "I can see some light up ahead. I think we're near the entrance."

  "Good," said Riona. "Now we just need to figure out how to get there-without dying."

  Dougal glanced around, and his eyes fell on Gullik. He pointed at the norn's axe and said, "Give me that."

  "You're as mad as Raven," said Gullik. "No warrior gives up his weapon until the fight is finished."

  "I'm going to use it to fight the trap." Dougal put out his hands. "Trust me."

  Gullik screwed up his lips as he evaluated the man and the moment, then reversed his axe and handed it to Dougal by the handle. "I expect it back in one piece."

  Holding the weapon, Dougal realized just how heavy the thing was. He wasn't sure he could swing it over his head. Fortunately, he didn't have to.

  He set the axe down on the walkway, then lowered himself into the sludge. It was just as nasty as it had been before. No matter how much he braced himself for the stench and the cold, it was horrible.

  He took the axe and put it headfirst into the sludge before Gullik could stop him. Then he bent down deeper into the sludge until it came up to the tops of his shoulders. With a bit of wiggling, he managed to wedge the ax up under the ramp. He tested it for a moment, then let go. It was jammed in there hard enough that it stuck.

  "I want my axe back," Gullik said. "I haven't lost a weapon since an icebrood I was fighting took my spear from me and used it as a toothpick."

  "I just need to release the grating," said Dougal. "Then you can have it back."

  He climbed out of the muck again and then beckoned Kranxx to come with him. "I need your lamp," he said, "and you're light enough to not trigger the trap with me." He looked past the aura. "The rest of you stay here. We'll be right back."

  Dougal worked his way forward along the ramp on his hands and knees, waiting for the axe's handle to snap or to feel the telltale tipping sensation that meant his life would soon end. As he drew closer to the end of the ramp, he saw the outside.

  The sewer exited the mountainside beneath a rocky overhang, which was why they could not see any daylight sooner. Even so, the light seemed muted, and Dougal guessed that the valley beyond the grate was probably still deep in shadow. The end of the sewer was sealed with an iron grate that had been coated with rust and slime over the past two centuries. The water surged through the grate, forming a cascade of muck that disappeared in fog below. The grate swung outward, but there was a lock on the grate that functioned only from this side, and it looked serviceable enough.

  With Kranxx's light over his shoulder, Dougal crept forward until he could reach the grate and put his weight on it instead. It held as steady as the rocks in which it was anchored. He slipped his pouch of lock picks out of its pocket in his jacket and went to work. Because of the rust and filth, it took him another half-minute longer than it should have to force the lock to give, but it did.

  The grate, however, was stuck.

  Dougal smacked it with his hand, but that didn't do a thing. Then he tried a shoulder, but that only bruised his arm. Standing up, he charged right at it.

  It gave, suddenly and too well.

  As the grate swung wide, Dougal lost his footing on the wobbly ramp and pitched forward. Kranxx reached for him with the hook but missed. Unable to recover his balance, Dougal did the only thing he could think of instead: he kicke
d off from the ramp and stretched out into the gaping maw of fog and shadow before him.

  His fingers closed on the slimy, slippery bars of the grate as it swung away from him, and he clung to them for his life. He glanced down below his dangling feet and saw that he hung over a dizzying drop that deposited Ebonhawke's sewage onto a cluster of jagged rocks. Despite himself, he shouted in terror, sure that he would not be able to maintain his tenuous grip on the treacherous grate.

  "Hold on!" Riona said.

  He could not turn to see what she and the others were doing, but he hoped it involved saving his life, and soon. A moment later he heard Kranxx's voice saying, "What? Wait! No!"

  Then the asura came sailing past Dougal's head and straight over the grate. A rope attached to his waist drew taut, and someone on the other end of it held it fast so that Kranxx did not tumble to his death. Then that same someone yanked on the rope to bring Kranxx closer.

  Once Kranxx had the grate in his grip, Dougal glanced back to see that both Ember and Gullik held the far end of the rope and were pulling hard. The grate swung shut with a satisfying clang, and the flowing sewage pushed the lower half of Dougal's body hard up against it. He used this opportunity to find a foothold and then haul himself up out of the flowage.

  "Thanks!" Dougal shouted backward.

  "Hey! What about me?" Kranxx shouted from the other side of the grate.

  "What can you see, Kranxx?" Dougal asked.

  "That I'm about to die!"

  "No, I mean down below you. Is there any way to get down from here?"

  "Sure, lots!"

  "That doesn't involve dying."

  "That narrows it down quite a bit. Hold on!" Kranxx swung himself around on the end of the rope and craned his neck at all angles. "Hard to see through all the mist. Looks like a fairly sheer drop down about fifty feet or more."

  The asura rummaged around in his pack and produced another coil of rope. He tied one end securely to the grate and let the other end play out below him. Dougal worked his way over to where the lock stood. "Let out the rope," he said to Gullik and Ember. "Slowly!"

  They did, and the pressure from the flowing sewage pushed the grate open on its hinges again. Once the gap was wide enough, Dougal swung himself around to the other side of the grate and grabbed on to the rope.

  "Why didn't you get started down?" he asked Kranxx.

  "Slide down on a filth-slick rope into a monster-infested wilderness?" The asura shook his head. "You go first."

  Dougal motioned for Ember and Gullik to let the rope play out until the grate swung back far enough that it no longer hung over the sewage-coated rocks below. Then he stuck out one leg and wrapped the rope around it. He checked Kranxx's knot and found it solid, then lowered himself down.

  The going was easy at first, until he got to the section of the rope that had dangled in the flowage. It was slick and nasty. Dougal had already been covered with so much filth that he didn't care much about the stench, but he had to hold on with all his might to keep from sliding down too fast. This soon proved impossible. No matter how he tried to clamp his hands on the rope, it was too slippery, and down he went in a barely controlled slide.

  Dougal hit the ground hard, his legs buckling underneath him, but he rolled with the impact. He lost his grip on the rope and feared for a moment that he would tumble back into the pool at the base of the falls, or into a deep crevasse hidden in the darkness. He came to a stop, though, against a wall of jagged boulders instead.

  The charr warband that had been waiting there burst out from behind the rocks and surrounded him in an instant.

  Dougal cried out in surprise and leaped to his feet. Before he could draw his sword, one of the charr knocked him back down again, sending him sprawling face-first into the dirt. Another leaped onto his back, pinning him there.

  "Scream, human, and I rip out your throat," the charr hissed in his ear.

  Dougal wasn't sure he could draw enough air to scream with anyhow, so he nodded in assent. He tried to get a count of how many charr there were but, lying facedown on the ground, it proved impossible. Most warbands had less than twenty members, to keep them mobile, but there were always exceptions.

  Dougal tried to raise his head to get a better look, and a paw drove his face back into the hardscrabble dirt. He grunted in pain and felt the tip of a claw pressed into the softest part of his throat.

  Kranxx came down the rope next, more slowly than Dougal had managed. He landed softly and peered into the dun-colored mists. "Dougal?" he called.

  Following Dougal's path across the dirt, the asura strode closer to the pool of shadow that the stand of boulders provided. "Don't tell me that after all that you broke your leg coming down that rope."

  A pair of charr reached out from the shadows and pulled Kranxx in. If he had a chance to struggle, Dougal didn't hear it. He could, however, hear the others still in the tunnel above, even over the splashing of the sewage into the rocky pool below.

  "Bear's buttocks!" Gullik said. "Give me a hand with retrieving my axe."

  "The rest of you go," said Ember. "We will meet you below."

  A moment later, the rope began wriggling again, and Killeen descended to the ground. "Dougal?" she said, sounding not scared but concerned. "Kranxx? Where are you?"

  Dougal tensed to ready himself for a yell, but the charr on top of him jabbed his neck with his claw. Dougal felt warm wetness slowly trickle out of a fresh cut on his throat and onto the ground.

  Riona appeared next to the sylvari then. In an instant she had out her sword, and she stared warily into the surrounding darkness. "Dougal?" she said. "This is not in the slightest bit funny."

  The charr not holding down Dougal and Kranxx emerged from the surrounding fog and foliage then, showing Riona and Killeen that they had them surrounded on all sides, save for that of the fetid pool at their backs. Both women kept their hands away from their weapons and craned their necks to catch sight of Dougal or the asura.

  "Yes!" Gullik shouted from above. "My axe is free!"

  "Don't kiss it," Ember said in disgust.

  One of the charr stood back and bellowed up at the pair in the tunnel. "We hear you up there, and we have your friends! Come down here now-and leave that grate open-or they die."

  At first, Dougal heard nothing but some urgent whispers between Ember and Gullik. Then she spoke: "I am Ember Doomforge, and I answer only to General Almorra Soulkeeper."

  "Ah! A charr? I should have guessed. I am Scorkin Bladebreaker of the Blade Warband, Blood Legion," said the charr who'd spoken before. "Good work! We have your prisoners captive. Join us, and we will plan our assault on Ebonhawke together."

  Dougal squirmed under the charr holding him down but could not get free. He hadn't considered the possibility that Ember might leave the sewer grate open behind them so that the charr could slip into Ebonhawke. His captor wrestled him into a sitting position.

  Ember leaped from the tunnel and caught the rope where it dangled below the grate, then zipped down it to land in the center of the clearing. She stood tall and pointed at Bladebreaker as she spoke. "These people you've captured are part of my mission, and you will leave them to me."

  "I know of your Soulkeeper and her Vigil," Bladebreaker said. "What fool's errand brings you here?"

  "That I cannot reveal," said Ember.

  Bladebreaker sneered, "Then you may go on your way. We will take care of your prisoners for you."

  Ember stalked closer to Bladebreaker. "You misunderstand. They are coming with me."

  "Wait," Bladebreaker said suspiciously. "Are they your prisoners, or are you theirs?"

  Ember snarled at the implication. "Neither. We work together as part of the Vigil, and you must allow us to pass."

  Bladebreaker snorted. "You are free to go where you like, Doomforge, but I cannot allow these 'friends' of yours to wander free through Ascalon."

  "You will let us pass. All of us." There was menace in Ember Doomforge's voice.

  "Do yo
u challenge me?" Bladebreaker's stance made it clear he relished that thought.

  Ember let out a laughing growl. "Do you not think I would enjoy tearing these weaklings to pieces and then helping you storm Ebonhawke from within? I ache to exact revenge on our ancient foes, but I am after bigger game."

  Dougal could not tell if Ember was bluffing or not, but for the first time Bladebreaker took a step backward, surprised. "Bigger game than the thorn of Ebonhawke? The city our people have laid siege to for over two hundred years?"

  Ember ignored Bladebreaker's disbelief and nodded.

  Bladebreaker gaped at her, then drew his jaws together into a determined wall of pointed teeth. "These are my prisoners."

  "These are my allies," said Ember. "I challenge you for their lives."

  "Accepted," said Bladebreaker. "Challenge, then, and all is fair."

  Ember drew her sword, its wet blade shining. With a gesture, she directed Riona and Killeen to retreat to the edge of the sewage pond. The other charr motioned with their own weapons and the two women reluctantly complied. Both were somber, and Dougal knew each was looking for an opportunity to turn the tables on their captors.

  "I tell you that I must bring these people with me and that my orders come from General Soulkeeper herself," said Ember, hefting her blade as if it were a trifle. "You must accept what I say. Or you must die for your error."

  Bladebreaker drew his sword too. It was filthy black but for its single sharpened edge. The pair approached each other with the care of priests observing an ancient ritual. When they were within three feet of each other, they reached out with their swords and slapped them together. The sharp sound rang out through the narrow valley. From there, the fight was on.

  Dougal looked around to see the charr engrossed in watching the fight, paying far more attention to it than to their foes. Kranxx had been allowed to sit up, too, and he had his massive pack in his lap, his arms hugging it possessively. Over by the pond, Riona stood tensed, her hand drifting to the pommel of her blade, and whispered to Killeen.

  Ember struck first, charging Bladebreaker with her sword held high. He raised his weapon to parry it, but she brought her blow down so hard that her blade still glanced off the spiked armor on his shoulder. He countered with an underhanded swipe of his off hand that sliced across Ember's belly. His claws slashed through her fur in three parallel lines.