Guild Wars: Ghosts of Ascalon by Jeff Grubb, Matt Forbeck Page A

my friend by the shoulders to shake the fear from him. As I did, I saw the changes start to take him.
    “His eyes began to glow an unearthly purple, and his muzzle shrank back into his face, becoming like the soft but toothy maw of a giant leech. His fur became transparent as his armor sloughed off his thinning shoulders and his arms transformed into flailing, shard-like claws. The skin peeled back from his face, and his lips and nose and eyelids shriveled up and fell away.
    “And then he turned into living glass, crystallizing in an instant before my eyes into his twisted form. And at my back, I could feel a pressure, like a great hand was pressing down on the entire world as the dragon passed overhead.
    “Despite the fact the dragon soared hundreds of feet above us, its passage turned the land beneath thepath of its flight black and transformed the plants into crystalline monstrosities. At the same time, the screams from the rest of my warband tore at my ears.
    “I drew my blade just before the creature that had been Soulslasher attacked, his splintered claws reaching for me as he screeched in horror at what he had become and the hunger that now drove him to drool at the thought of devouring me alive. I don’t know what spared me from sharing his fate. Every other member of our warband succumbed to it. I was standing no more than a foot from Harthog, and he and the others were warped beyond recognition, yet I was spared.
    “I slew the thing that had been Soulslasher then, but after I tore out his throat, his body kept coming at me. I had to shatter him into pieces to finally put him down. Then I turned, in the deafening silence after the dragon’s passage, and saw the rest of my warband trying to kill each other, each twisted in a unique and horrible way.
    “I waited for my warsiblings to tear each other apart, then stepped in and dispatched the survivors as best I could. When it was done, I looked before and behind me and saw that every part of the land that had passed beneath the dragon had been twisted in this same way. The grass shattered under my feet as I walked on it, grinding it into sand.”
    “The Dragonbrand.” Dougal breathed the word with horrified respect.
    Soulkeeper nodded. “The curse the dragon laid upon the land stretched for untold miles in the direction of the flight, coming from the north and reaching for thesouth. Everything in its path had been turned to crystal: the trees, the animals, even the land itself nearby.
    “The worst part of it all is that the dragon didn’t care about the destruction it caused. It was going elsewhere, on a mission known only to itself. To it, the Dragonbrand was worth nothing more than your boot prints are to you. We might as well have been ants. Everything I lost that day mattered to it not one bit.
    “I fell into my own personal darkness, my friends slain by a force greater than I could hope to confront.” General Almorra Soulkeeper seemed to forget that Dougal was there, her lips drawn back over bared teeth. “I became a gladium, a charr without a warband, and refused any aid in my darkness. At last, with the help of a few unlikely allies, I came to myself and knew what had to be done.
    “I knew then that this was no foe that a single people could confront,” Soulkeeper said. “To have any hope of defeating an Elder Dragon, the peoples of Tyria would have to band together to fight it.”
    “That’s why you formed the Vigil,” Dougal said.
    “Yes,” said Almorra. “And although I work to save Tyria, I also know I act to save myself.” Almorra returned to the present time and the firelit chamber. Turning to face Dougal, she said, “Crusader Riona told me your companions died when you went into Ascalon City. They were your fellow warriors and your friends. I can understand your reticence to return there.”
    “I have a dozen reasons to stay away, and not one good one to return,” said Dougal, “Yet, I accept your plan. I will lead a group into