"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. 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 world is is dead." 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 n.o.ble 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 My plan." 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 sh.e.l.l 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 ba.s.s 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 a.s.signed 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, smas.h.i.+ng 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.
About the Author.