Forced to retreat, Ember stumbled over an unseen rock behind her and fell flat on her back. She reached to her side and her paw came up with her pistol, heavy and deadly. She pulled the trigger and there was a dull, mud-stained click. Ember cursed.
Bladebreaker raised his weapon high above his head to deliver the killing blow, but before he could bring down his arms, a loud clang sounded high overhead.
Dougal looked up to see that Gullik had slammed the grate over the sewer's exit shut and had cut the rope free to fall in the pool below. The norn belted out a bellow filled with the joy of battle as he kicked off from the grating, angling toward a tiny ledge on the cliff face below. He snagged it with his hand as he passed and used the momentum to swing his feet high about in the air, catapulting himself away from the wall and toward the clearing below. As he landed near Ember and Bladebreaker, he hurled his axe forward, and it caught the leader of the charr warband right in the center of his chest.
Bladebreaker stood there for a moment, staring at the weapon that seemed to have magically appeared with its blade already embedded several inches in his armor. He opened his mouth to say something but discovered he could not, then toppled over dead.
There was silence by the pool, save for the splash of the cut rope finally reaching the water.
"You idiot!" Ember screamed at the norn as she threw herself to her feet. "I only win the argument if I kill him."
Gullik gave her a wide and toothy grin. "Then I suppose that means the winner is me." He pointed at the rest of the charr. "Off with the lot of you, now, or I'll win arguments with each of you, too!"
The other charr joined in a horrific roar so loud that it pained Dougal's ears. Ember was right: had she slain the leader, the rest of the band would have been cowed enough to let them go. But now, incensed at the norn's insult more than Bladebreaker's death, they closed in as one and growled for Gullik's flesh.
Gullik then realized that he was unarmed, his axe still stuck in Bladebreaker's chest. "Ho!" he said, holding his hands up and grinning wider than ever. "Now this shall be a true challenge!" As he spoke, he attained his bear form, hairier and more massive, his hands becoming wicked claws.
The charr who had been holding Dougal jumped up to join his warband in tearing the norn apart. Seizing his chance, Dougal leaped to his feet, his sword instantly in his hand. The blade made no sound as it left its sheath, but Dougal's former guard caught sight of him drawing his weapon and spun around, drawing his own blade.
Dougal's head swam from getting up too fast after having had a charr crushing him for so long. He put his sword before him and hoped that the charr would not see its black blade and impale himself on it in his fury.
Before that could happen, Kranxx stood up and threw something into the middle of the clearing. It fizzed and sparked as it rolled to land near Gullik's hind legs.
"An asura invention!" Gullik said. "Would you look at that?"
"Eyes!" Kranxx shouted at the top of his lungs.
Dougal remembered to close his eyes tight. The flash from the device's detonation was so bright that even through his eyelids it nearly blinded him.
Dougal blinked away the few dots before his eyes and saw the charr all around the clearing clutching their faces and snarling in pain and frustration. This would not be a fair fight, he knew, but it never had been.
Dougal's blade slid easily into the neck of the charr who had cut him and then came right back out again, along with the charr's last breath. Another charr came stumbling at Dougal, swinging his sword blindly while homing in on his dying friend's final cry. Dougal steeled himself to the task, waited for the right moment, then ran the charr through.
Riona slew three of the charr herself, with the quick efficiency of a warrior who had seen far too much of battle and wanted this one to end quickly. Killeen intoned a spell that caused three more of their assailants to rot to death before her eyes. Kranxx spilled no blood, instead rooting around in his pack for some other trick to use. Gullik regained his natural form, pulled his axe from Bladebreaker's chest, and used it to split the last of the enemy charr in half.
Ember stood amid the carnage, roaring in frustration. She snatched up Bladebreaker's sword and waved it at the dying charr, but she did not use it against them.
"This did not have to happen!" she shouted at the other charr, not caring if any of them could still hear her. "You did not have to die. If you had just listened to me, we could have been on our way, and you would all have lived to try your luck against Ebonhawke another day." Then she pierced Bladebreaker with his own blade.
Again silence in the valley, save for the falling mire behind them.
Dougal came over to stand near Ember, although he stayed out of reach of her blade. "I know how you feel. I felt the same about the Vanguard in the sewer," he said.
"That's nothing like this," Ember said.
"Except that it is exactly," Riona said from over near the pond. She wiped her blade clean before returning it to its scabbard.
"No, it's not," Ember snarled. "You regret killing your people. I regret that my people were so foolish. Let us leave them to the scavengers."
"Not all of them are foolish," said Dougal, and as if to punctuate his words, distant horns sounded: a charr unit on the march.
"That's another patrol of the Blood Legion," said Ember. "They expect a response." She moved among the bodies and pulled a slightly bent warhorn from among the corpses. She raised it to her lips.
Riona took a step forward, but Dougal stopped her from saying anything. Ember let out a long, low blast, repeating the notes from the first horn they heard. There was a pause, then the distant horns sounded again, apparently in a different direction. Farther off, there was a similar response.
"That bought us some time," said Ember. "They won't know anything is amiss until the day's end, when the warbands return to camp. When they find that this warband has been slaughtered, they'll set out to hunt us down and kill us all."
Dougal glanced up. The sun had finally topped their canyon valley and turned the spattering waterfall into a rainbow of gems. They would have to find a secure place quickly.
"In that case," he said, "we'd better get moving."
The fetid stream from the sewer pond seeped into a dank mire before they even left the valley. They hugged the mountain's foothills, trying not to attract any attention while putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the grated sewer pipe.
The day was warmer now, and the filth that permeated their clothes and hair stiffened and flaked off, losing none of its pungency in the process. Dougal was pleased that the charr sense of smell was not as vaunted as legend said, but was aware that even a group of asura with head colds could smell them from a league away.
"Bah," said Gullik, swatting at a small cloud of flies that had adopted his offal-stained braids. "You would think we were grawl, for all that these flies love us!"
"More importantly, we need to find cover for the rest of the day," said Ember. "This area is riddled with box canyons like the one the sewer let out of. On occasion one of our warbands would investigate them as an excuse to get out of the sun."
"This way," suggested Killeen, pointing to a particularly nondescript cleft in the stone.
"Your Dream?" said Riona.
"Something like that," said the sylvari, but she sounded distracted.
The haze of the morning had thickened as they moved, and now a thick layer of grim clouds covered the steel-gray sky. Ember led them up a gully cut by a shallow creek and discovered a pool at the far end. They waded into the water fully clothed and rinsed out the worst of the foulness, then changed and laid out the wet clothes to dry. They nestled there under the shelter of the gully's winding walls, checking and drying their weapons and armor, and gnawing on cold rations.