Edge of Destiny

SUNDERING

Logan's hammer shattered the knee of an ogre. It toppled like a tree and smashed into one of its comrades, which crashed on top of a charr. A second charr vaulted onto the fallen ogre and ripped out its throat-only to be cleaved by a great axe.

It was a bloodbath in the courtyard of Ebonhawke. Seraph and Vanguard, Blood Legion and Iron Legion, ogre and hyena, fought and fell. The battle roared like a ravenous monster that would not rest until it had eaten them all. At the heart of that maelstrom, Logan Thackeray held the line by sheer force of will and rallied the defenders for one last, desperate surge.

Then, above the fortress city, a greater monster arrived. Its wings blackened the sky, and the beat of those wings pounded down on the warriors below. Ogres and hyenas looked up and wailed in glee. Humans and charr groaned in dread.

Kralkatorrik had returned.

It shrieked, a sound bigger than the sky.

Every mortal creature dropped to its knees.

Kralkatorrik's eyes lit, and twin beams of ravening power raked down upon the warriors. Charr hackles hardened to spikes. Human muscles clenched to stone.

The ogres grinned to see their enemies transformed. It turned them to rock but left them puny-punishment for their resistance. The beams blazed through the courtyard, catching every last human and charr.

The battle of Ebonhawke was done.

Kralkatorrik had declared the victors.

The last outpost of humans in Ascalon would now be a dragon fortress.

The Elder Dragon screamed, and its ogre minions bellowed in joyful reply.

Then the dragon's wings pulsed, and it pivoted massively above the fortress. Another stroke of those wings, and Kralkatorrik banked away, heading south.

The ogres and hyenas watched in grief as their master left them. Their faces fell, and they stared at the pathetic dragon minions all around. With looks of disgust, the ogres turned away and loped toward the shattered southern wall. They clambered through, their hyenas leaping at their heels.

The once-humans and once-charr did not move from their spots, as if rooted in place.

Still, the ogres followed their master. Let these puny minions hold Ebonhawke. The ogres would serve their lord directly.

Through the wall they went, and down upon the rocky lands beyond-southward, ever southward into the Crystal Desert. With bellows and cackles, they followed their ancient lord.

Kralkatorrik already was impossibly distant, and it flew at terrific speed. Soon, it would be lost to sight, but the ogres would follow until they were in the presence of their master.

Logan stood unmoving in the courtyard of Ebonhawke. He had been transfigured like all the rest-not transformed, but transfigured. When the dragon's eyes stared down upon him, his outer semblance became something new-stony and strange. It was as if every muscle seized up, and he had become a living statue.

But his mind still turned, still told him that his friends had failed. They had failed because he had abandoned them. And now, Kralkatorrik held him.

As the last of the ogres climbed through the wall and lumbered away across the rocky hills, the glamour that gripped Logan and the others faded away.

Logan panted, only then realizing he had forgotten to breathe.

A Vanguard warrior nearby staggered and clutched his knees.

A charr legionnaire whipped his head back and forth, eyes blazing. "What sort of sorcery was that?"

"My type of sorcery," came a voice high above, "mesmerism."

Logan and the others looked up to see, on the highest balcony of the keep, Queen Jennah. From that lofty spot, she had cast the illusion of the dragon in the sky. She had poured down golden light to lave the warriors below, had made them seem creatures of stone. Her spell had been so powerful, they had not known they could still breathe.

"I've deceived them, the minions of Kralkatorrik," Queen Jennah called. "I have saved you, human and charr alike. We have been enemies these many centuries, but now there is a new enemy for us both.

"This is a dark day, the first of many. This is a day of dragons. We must stand together against them, or we will all fall beneath. And so I am releasing these charr prisoners." She gestured down at the group of charr standing beside the fortress's portcullis. "They have fought beside us, and they are free."

Logan strode toward the line of charr. "Did you hear that? You're free."

One of the warriors said, "We fought beside humans. We will be outcasts."

"No," Logan said. "I've spent the last year fighting beside a charr. Am I an outcast?"

The charr looked him in the eye. "I will tell them I fought beside Logan Thackeray."

"Yes. Tell them that."

Zojja ripped away the straps that bound her into the cockpit and pounded the button that made the blast shield slide down. Vaulting from her golem, she landed achingly on the floor of the sanctum and ran to Big Snaff.

It lay where it had fallen, shattered stone and smoking servos.

Zojja stared hopelessly into the gutted belly of the golem. There, amid torqued stanchions, lay a limp figure, pierced in many places and bloodless.

He was dead.

Snaff was dead.

"No!" Zojja screamed.

Running feet approached-Eir arriving to grip the fuselage of the golem and stare within. "You can't die!"

"He's dead already!"

Eir reached into the cockpit, hands fumbling. "You can't die." Eir pulled Snaff's broken body from the wreckage and cradled him.

"Put him down!" Zojja yelled. "You have no right! Your plan failed. You killed him!"

Eir's green eyes opened wide. "I killed him?"

"Put him back!"

Eir stood for a long while, holding the asura genius. Then slowly, reverently, she lowered his body back into the ruined golem.

"Now, get out of here!" Zojja snapped. "I have to cremate him."

Numbly, Eir turned and wandered away through the shattered sanctum.

Zojja waited until the norn was gone. Then, with tears streaming down her face, she said, "Good-bye, Master." She lowered her hands into the shattered cockpit of Big Snaff and called forth cremating fire.

"Pointless," Rytlock muttered as he stared out at the battlefield.

Before him, the sands had fused to green glass, entrapping a thousand stone creatures. To his right lay Glint, destroyed in combat against her master. To his left lay her ruined sanctuary-once a haven in the Crystal Desert and now a ragged memorial.

"Pointless."

Especially because they had been so close. Just a few moments more and the lance would have pierced the dragon's heart, and Kralkatorrik would have died, and Snaff would have lived.

A few moments that Logan could have given them.

"Logan!" Rytlock roared, ripping Sohothin from its sheath and ramming it into the ground. "It's your fault!"

The shout rang false. It wasn't Logan's fault. It was Rytlock's, for trusting a human. For letting a human's softness make him… weak.

"I'm a fool," Rytlock said.

"You're a hero," said Caithe, stepping up to him. "We can't wallow in grief."

"Wallow!" Rytlock growled. "Two of our companions are dead."

"And more will be if we don't join together," she insisted. Her strange white face, so small and intense, stared at his own. "We have to regroup, come up with a new plan."

"There's no more group. There's no more plan."

"But we haven't finished-"

"I have." Rytlock crouched to pull his flaming sword from the ground, slung it in its sheath, and strode away.

"What does that mean?" she shouted after him.

Rytlock continued to walk.

"Rytlock, what does that mean?"

He made no reply.

Caithe strode through the ruined sanctum of Glint, heading toward the fallen golem.

Zojja was within. She had removed one of Big Snaff's epaulets and was using it as an urn to gather her master's ashes.

Caithe spoke softly. "Rytlock is leaving."

"Just like Logan."

"We have to stop him, or go with him."

Zojja smiled sadly. "I don't have to do anything."

"Don't be irrational," Caithe said.

Zojja's eyes clouded with anger. "Who are you to tell me anything? You're not my master. My master is dead."

Caithe said sincerely, "This could be the death of the whole world."

"My world is dead."

Eir stood stunned on the battlefield.

Logan was gone. Snaff was dead. Glint was dead. And Kralkatorrik lived.

She staggered toward the broken hulk that had once been Glint. Her wings had been sheared off on impact, and her body was bashed, her neck broken… But her head lay on the sands as if she only slept. Those ferocious horns, those wide and wise eyes, that noble muzzle all mantled in whiskers"Forgive me," Eir said. "I was sure we could keep him safe. With Logan, we could have. But now…" Eir looked away across the desert. "The plan went wrong. My plan."

Glint lay unmoving.

Eir leaned against the jowl of the beast and whispered into her torn ear, "Forgive me."

Only silence answered.

Caithe approached and said, "Rytlock is leaving and Zojja won't move."

Eir clung to the dead dragon.

"Kralkatorrik will be back. We have to regroup."

"Who?" Eir asked, infinitely weary. "You, me, and Garm?"

Caithe tried a different approach. "We can't stay here. There's nothing to eat or drink."

Eir didn't answer.

"So, we have to go somewhere, and we might as well go the same way that Rytlock is going." Caithe took a deep breath. "We have to take Zojja with us, but she won't go."

"Neither will I."

"Come along, Zojja," Caithe said. "We have to go."

The asura looked up from the gutted shell of Big Snaff. Her eyes were empty.

"We have to catch up to Rytlock," Caithe went on.

"There's only one thing I have to do: take his ashes back to Rata Sum."

Caithe nodded. "I will help you. Hand me the urn so you can climb out."

Zojja blinked. "All right." She lifted the metal casing with its precious cargo.

Caithe held it while Zojja climbed out of the wreckage.

Then, side by side, the asura and the sylvari walked.

Rytlock got smaller and smaller on the horizon. In time, he was only a black spot. When night fell, he was gone altogether.

"We should probably stop," Caithe said, setting down the urn that held Snaff.

"I'm cold," Zojja said bleakly. "We need a fire."

"There's nothing to burn," Caithe said.

"I'm going to look."

Zojja spent the next half hour picking across the dunes around them, returning with only a few creosote twigs and the skeleton of a lizard. "Not even enough to keep us warm."

The two women sat side by side beneath the wheeling stars.

"We never caught up to Rytlock," Caithe noted.

Zojja nodded. "We never will."

The sun shone brightly from the white walls of Divinity's Reach and from the white robes of the Seraph. They filled the street, marching to the slow cadence of tight-strung drums. The snares crackled, and the bass boomed.

It was a funeral march. Each Seraph held one end of a pallet on which lay their fallen friends. One hundred thirty-three Seraph had died in the Ogre Revolt. One of them was Dylan Thackeray.

Logan helped carry his pallet. It was light. The hyenas had been thorough.

But Logan marched beneath a heavy weight. He had returned, but they were gone. All that was left was smashed crystals. He had failed his brother, and he had failed his friends.

At least he hadn't failed his queen.

Even so, the mirror-bright armor he wore-the plate mail of a captain of the Seraph-weighed heavily on Logan, as did the weapon at his belt.

He'd given up his war hammer to wield his fallen brother's sword.

The procession turned down the main avenue between high walls. The people of Divinity's Reach lined the way. Little girls solemnly cast flowers into the lane.

How quiet this parade was.

At least Logan was in Divinity's Reach now. At least he could defend his queen. And maybe in this city, he would never have to fight a charr again.

Legionnaire Rytlock Brimstone stood guard on the curtain wall of the Black Citadel. It was not glamorous duty, but at least he was fighting for the right side again.

When first he returned to the Blood Legion, he was stripped of rank and assigned menial work. An overseer called him a traitor, and Rytlock killed him. That's how he became an overseer. Later, a legionnaire called him a deserter, and Rytlock killed him as well. That's how he became a legionnaire.

Let a centurion call him a friend to humans, and Rytlock would rise again.

He was no longer a friend to humans, especially not to Logan Thackeray.

Rytlock spit from the top of the wall and watched the gobbet fall a hundred feet down before smearing.

Logan, who was now Queen Jennah's lapdog…

Logan, who had corrupted a dungeon full of charr…

Logan, who had made a fool out of Rytlock…

"He'd better hope the Seraph never fight the Blood Legion."

At last, Zojja was back in Rata Sum.

She descended the stairs into Snaff's laboratory. Her gaze fell longingly on the half-finished golems lying there, the projects her master had left undone.

Reaching the floor of the lab, Zojja set down the jar of ashes and lifted a pry bar. She levered up one of the large paving stones and used a shovel to dig into the ground beneath it. An hour of sweat and grit later, his grave was ready.

"You'll always be here," she said to the jar.

Then she lowered the ashes into the ground and shoveled dirt on top.

Soon, she slid the stone back into place. It boomed, the sound echoing from the wide walls.

It was no longer Snaff's laboratory. It was hers, now: genius.

At last.

But she would never build golems the way Snaff had. No one ever would. They would try, of course, but they would fail. Snaff had been a one-of-a-kind genius, and he had taken the secrets of powerstones to the grave with him.

It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered anymore.

"Don't move!"

Garm snapped his head upright, eyes blazing ferociously.

"Stay exactly like that."

He and Eir had returned to Hoelbrak, to her long-disused workshop. Just now, Eir was working on the wolf statue she had abandoned long ago. But she hadn't set a single chisel to the sculpture. She only stood there, holding her tools and staring at the thing.

That's why it was so hard to stay still.

Eir sighed, shaking her head. "I can't see it."

Garm lifted his eyebrows questioningly, but then tried to look straight ahead.

"It's not in there. The statue isn't in there anymore."

Eir laid down her chisels and mallet and stepped up and shoved the rock over, smashing it to the workshop floor. • • • Caithe walked along the Dragonbrand-the wide swath of destruction laid down by Kralkatorrik. Every once in a while, she would bend down and pull a large green crystal from the sands.

"Dragon blood," she said, staring gladly at one such stone before sliding it into her pack.

It was lonely work, wandering these desolate places, searching for the secrets of Kralkatorrik and the Elder Dragons. But it was even lonelier when she traveled to Hoelbrak or Rata Sum or Divinity's Reach or the Black Citadel only to find that her onetime friends had become strangers.

But they would be friends again. Someday, they would join her. Someday, they would fight the dragons again.

Someday.