Killeen, on the other hand, had no trouble with that at all. She leaped to her feet and scurried over to take the charr by the paw and escort her to a seat at the table. "The general is as wise as she is generous," she said. "I'm thrilled to have someone like you as a part of our guild."
Dougal winced at that word and saw Doomforge do the same as she accepted the seat the much smaller sylvari shoved in behind her. "I have a warband already," the charr said. "I do not need a guild."
Dougal nodded at that, finally finding something he and Doomforge could agree upon. "We are in no way a guild," he said. "Guilds are permanent organizations. They are created and maintained by their own membership, and are usually set up with long-term goals. We are four individuals gathered together for a single mission. We are a team, a company, maybe even what the asura call a krewe. And I don't even like teams that much." Riona failed to suppress a rude snort at that, but he ignored her. "It is often better to work alone."
Killeen smiled at them both as if they were slow-headed children. "But you're not working alone, are you? And you"-she turned back to Doomforge-"don't have your warband with you. I suppose, in a way, we're your warband."
Dougal almost choked on his wine at this, but Doomforge's reaction drowned out his own. "I am charr," she said, pronouncing each word carefully. "My warband is to me what humans would consider a family. We were raised together as cubs in the creche, in the fahrar. We were trained to fight together as a unit. We may not share blood, for we honor our elders and forebears, but the bonds of battle hold stronger than any family tie."
"A family?" Killeen said, tilting her head at a curious angle. "All sylvari are a single family. We all sprang from the same source, the Pale Tree, but the Dream-our communal history and subconscious-binds us together even more than that. Perhaps that is why we treasure our individualism. When you have so much in common, the new experiences you have-those that separate you from the others-are what make you unique."
A servant swept in with a roast suckling pig on a platter and placed it before the charr. Doomforge eyed it for a long moment, then set to picking at it with a single talon, slicing the flesh from the bones like a master butcher. "By that," the charr said, "I mean that I already have a 'family' or 'guild' or 'warband' or whatever you wish to call it. I have no need for another."
"You can always use another family," said Killeen.
Having dismembered the pig, Doomforge stuffed it into her mouth. Piece by piece, its pink flesh disappeared into her maw. The way Doomforge's jaws and teeth worked in concert to annihilate the pig fascinated Dougal. He could not look away, no matter how much Doomforge glared at him over the bones she picked clean.
"All right," said Killeen. "Not a family. We can at least be a team."
Doomforge scowled as she reached for a goblet of ale a servant had brought her while she consumed her meal. "You forget that I am to enter Ebonhawke not as a friend but as a prisoner."
The charr looked as though she wished she could hack up that last word, spit it on the floor, and grind it under her boot. "This is not a wandering adventure. It is not a battle in some arena, for the sake of glory and recognition. It is a mission. I neither want nor need friends nor a family nor a team. I need only to follow my orders, and this I will do."
"I see," said Dougal. "And have you spent enough time with us to have fulfilled your orders?"
"No," said the charr, and for a moment Dougal swore Doomforge's features softened for a moment. "There is another matter. I came to apologize as well. To you, Dougal Keane."
Dougal's eyebrows rose but the charr just took a deep breath and pressed on.
Doomforge stared at the table as she spoke. "I acted rashly in the general's presence, and I am to convey to you my apologies for doing so. As long as you do not provoke me, it will not happen again.
"Further"-Doomforge's brows furrowed-"to allow a norn-even one as notorious as Gullik Oddsson-to slip past our guards is inexcusable. He apparently scaled the building and broke in through a window in broad daylight. Were he more competent, or less inebriated, he would have succeeded, and our mission would have become doubly impossible. I have spoken with the guards and it will not happen again. Oddsson has been sobered up, and I understand that he is facing General Soulkeeper's wrath as we speak."
Dougal waved off her apology. They were not going to be here long enough for any security changes to matter. "All I care about, Doomforge, is getting on our way before something like this happens again."
Doomforge reached for her glass but did not pick it up. "Ember."
"Excuse me?"
"Call me Ember."
"Seriously?" said Dougal, trying not to smile at the uncomfortable charr. He tried to remember when he had ever been on a first-name basis with a charr, and came up empty.
"The general suggested I request it."
"Are we supposed to be friends, then?"
"Not at all," she said, and Dougal was certain that the charr smiled as she said it.
Dougal nodded. "Then call me Dougal."
"I only have my one name," Killeen put in with a helpful smile.
Riona scowled. "Call me Crusader, charr, and I will call you the same, out of respect for our order. But it is good to see you kids playing nice."
"Just as long as we make it through Ebonhawke," said Dougal. To Ember Doomforge he said, "I have been trying to come up with a better plan but, short of a potion of invisibility, I am at a loss."
Killeen put a hand on Ember's free paw. "Are you going to be all right about wearing the chains?"
Ember bared her teeth for a moment before she spoke. "I hate it. I hate the very idea of it. But the general is correct that there is no other way, so I will do it."
"It's just a ruse," said Killeen. "It doesn't mean anything."
"If you believe that," Ember snarled, "then you know nothing of the charr."
Dougal tossed back another gulp of the liquor. "It's about Scorchrazor, isn't it?"
Ember started at the mention of the name. She cast Dougal an angry look, then nodded.
"Scorchrazor?" asked Killeen.
"Kalla Scorchrazor," said Dougal. "Even the humans in Ebonhawke know about her. One of the most famous charr since the time of the Searing. Back in the day, when the shamans of the Flame Legion commanded the charr armies, female charr didn't have much status among their people. They never went to war and were relegated to subordinate positions. Many of them served in chains. Scorchrazor changed all that. She destroyed the charr shamans and nearly took down an entire legion of them."
"How typically human," Ember said, "blathering on about things you know very little about. Your race has just enough knowledge to be dangerous."
"All right," Dougal said, his own curiosity rising. "Enlighten us."
Ember pulled a tuft of fur from her arm and held it over a candle flickering in the center of the table. The hair ignited, and Ember dropped it into her glass. The liquor in it burst into a bluish flame.
Lit by the flame in her glass, Ember spoke, her voice no longer carrying its usual menace. "In the days when humans still presented a challenge for the charr, we did something terribly foolish that we have long since sworn never to do again: we worshipped gods.
"Before humans came to Tyria, we had no gods. We knew about creatures with power we could barely comprehend, but we thought of them as foes to be defeated, not gods to be placated. When we suffered our first defeats at the hairless hands of humans, though, many charr blamed this on the fact that they could plead to their gods for help while we fought alone, relying only on ourselves.
"A warband from the Flame Legion came to the rest of the charr one day and announced that they had found gods for us to worship. These were creatures later called titans, but they were powerful enough that such labels mattered little. The shamans who led their worship used braziers of fire as icons of their newfound gods. The other legions hesitated to follow their lead, but the Flame Legion had so much success at converting others-often by force-that many assumed that they must have gods on their side. It was the titans that gave us the cauldrons that allowed us to breach the Great Northern Wall.