Matt Forbeck - Ghosts of Ascalon

This strange request took Adelbern back an instant, but his fury resurged. "The only thing of which I shall approve is your death!"

"But, Your Majesty," he said, "I come here on behalf of your son, Prince Rurik!"

This blatant lie brought the ghost up short. He stammered for a moment, suddenly distracted. "Rurik? My son?" For a moment his face softened, but then it grew dark again. "Rurik is dead! To me, he died the moment he left Ascalon!"

"Your son is dead, as you are." This voice came from atop the battlements. The king turned to see its source, and his face grew livid.

"Savione!" he said. "You worthless wretch! How dare you enter my presence without my bidding?"

"No, sire! These people are here to repair the damage that you've done! I won't let you hurt them!"

"Stand aside and let me slay this foul beast now, Savione! In honor of your years of service, I will give you one last chance!"

"Years!" Savione threw up his hands. "Try centuries! You killed me, and you still consider me to be in your service! Well, no more!"

The courtier stared at his king and spoke in short, cold phrases. "I renounce my position in your court. There's nothing more you can take from me, Adelbern. You cannot hurt me."

"So you think!" Adelbern reached forward and pulled the ghostly dagger from the courtier's chest. Then the mad king stepped forward and swung his blade at Savione. The ghostly servant did not move to avoid the blow, and the blade sliced through him, cutting him cleanly in two.

Dougal waited for Savione to re-form like the ghosts that Ember had battled in the cave near the Dragonbrand. Instead, the two halves of Savione separated from each other and slid apart. His legs fell one way while his chest fell another.

Before he faded away entirely, Savione said one last word, his voice brimming with grim relief: "Finally." Then he disappeared, flowing away into the breeze atop the battlements like a half-remembered dream.

Adelbern turned away from the vanished shards of his former servant but found the staircase empty. Riona and Dougal were already lost among the shadowed buildings below.

Behind them, the human pair heard Adelbern's cry of frustration over the rooftops.

"I think we got under his skin," said Riona, hugging a wall.

"You think Savione is really gone?" asked Dougal.

Riona shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think it matters what happens to Savione, Ember, or Kranxx. What matters is we find the Claw of the Khan-Ur."

Dougal grimaced at her, then craned his neck to get a better look at the top of the tower again. "All right," he said. "You're right. I know you're right, but I don't have to like it. Let's move."

Dougal sprinted through the town as fast as he could. Riona lagged behind just a bit, but he could hear her behind him every step of the way. Soon they reached the main square, and Dougal skidded to a halt.

The carnage sprawled out before him stole his breath. From one side of the square to the other, the remains sat piled up as if tossed into some careless giant's abattoir, bones and weapons and armor stacked upon each other like kindling for a monstrous fire.

Most of the bodies, especially the ones nearest to and even inside the shattered gates, had once been part of the charr invading force. At a curving line that met roughly near a well in the center of the square, though, the charr corpses mingled with those of the force of human warriors once arrayed against them. The two sides overlapped for several yards, a stark example of the uncertainty and chaos of battle.

Dougal and Riona picked their way across the square, trying not to disturb the dead. At first Dougal tried to avoid stepping on any remains so as to show respect for those who'd fallen here. That soon proved impossible, so he switched to treading gently on the bones that he could not avoid.

Then a horrible howl from Ember rang throughout Ascalon City, followed by an explosion, and Dougal gave up and just charged as fast as he could without slipping on the remains scattered across the square.

They were near the far side of the square when the charr appeared, still carrying the struggling asura. Ember's mouth was rimed with a lathering froth, and the asura was pulling things out of his rapidly diminishing pack and tossing them back at the howling, hungry ghosts.

There was a brilliant flash behind them, and the side of the old archive wall slowly collapsed into the street, burying the ghosts beneath it. A cloud of dust rose from the crash, and the ghosts slowly pulled themselves from the wreckage.

Ember noticed the two humans, and she stood tall and snapped a salute to Dougal. She panted from the exertion but seemed otherwise unharmed.

"Get out of here!" Riona said. "You're supposed to lure them away! "

"Hold it!" Kranxx said as Ember turned to sprint away. "That's it!"

The charr froze, and the asura leaped down from her back to pluck a bleached charr skull from the top of the mound of bones that filled even that distant part of the square.

"Yes," the asura said, grinning into the skull's empty eye sockets. "Proximity to the Heart of the Foefire. Good solidity. Should have enough necrotic residue to tune. This should do nicely." He pulled from his pocket the device that looked like a cross between a violin and a crossbow.

Not bothering to acknowledge the others again, Ember scooped Kranxx up and raced away from them with the asura in her arms. The re-forming ghosts, now clear of the collapsed building, howled after them.

Dougal and Riona crouched at the far end of the square. After the last of the ghosts spiraled out of view, chasing the charr and the asura, they let out a held breath.

"All right," said Riona, "now we need to get-"

That was the moment that three ghosts wafted out of the surrounding ruins and descended on her. These were dressed in ancient Ascalonian armor and keened and wailed as they attacked. For Dougal it was all too familiar.

"Vala!" shouted Dougal, slicing his sword through the nearest ghost. It let out a scream and dissipated, struck to the heart by the ebon blade. "I'll get them!" Another blow and he chopped a ghost through the eyes. It popped like a soap bubble.

The third ghost turned from its attack on Riona and leaped at Dougal, too fast for him to riposte. The spirit passed through him, and he could feel his heart freeze with its passage. He spun as it emerged from his far side and snapped loose with the sword. It caught the ghost immediately, and before it could even scream, it was gone.

Riona staggered to her feet, her face wan from the chilling touch of the ghosts.

"We need to go," said Dougal, "before any other ghosts find us."

"Too late," said Riona, and looked over Dougal's shoulder at the bone-strewn square they had just crossed.

The square was now filled with ghosts: soldiers and citizens, men and women and children. They watched the pair silently, their eyes wide with curiosity and madness.

"What are they waiting for?" asked Dougal, but he immediately had his answer. On the opposite side of the square, atop the shards of a collapsed tower, Adelbern appeared in full armor and bearing the ghostly remains of Magdaer, his double-bladed sword.

"You have invaded my kingdom and threatened my people," said Adelbern, his long hair blown back by unseen breezes. "You are traitors to Ascalon and to humanity. I have found you guilty, and the verdict is death! Subjects! Carry out the-"

Adelbern did not finish his sentence, for the ground beneath their feet began to hum and shake. Slowly, one of the bones pulled loose from the others and arced out, over the nearby buildings, to the east. Then another leg bone, this one belonging to a charr. Then a skull. All of them were suddenly magnetic, pulled by some unseen force toward the east. The air was soon filled with the shards of bones, daggers, and clubs of skeletal remains forming a broad gray-white river.