Edge of Destiny

CONTEST

For the first time in two months, Edge of Steel canceled their scheduled match.

The fans were outraged.

"They will not fight tonight or tomorrow," proclaimed Sangjo, standing in the announcer's tower. "Or the next night or the next."

Boos answered his pronouncement, welling up around the arena.

"What's the matter?" Sangjo asked. "There are plenty of other gladiatorial teams."

A chant of "Edge of Steel! Edge of Steel!" began in one sector of the arena and propagated through the whole. It shook the stands and washed across the other gladiatorial teams waiting below. In the announcer's tower, Sangjo smiled secretly and waited for the chants to die down. After five minutes, they did.

"Friends. Friends-they will fight again. In five days, you will see them face their greatest rivals ever."

A wild cheer went up. The cry evolved into a single chanted question-"Who? Who? Who?"

"In five days, you will see."

Throughout those five days, Sangjo furiously promoted the match. He sent out a small army of stable hands to stand in the streets and shout teasers. The one bit of information they did not divulge, though, was whom Edge of Steel would fight.

Edge of Steel themselves spread the news through the taverns of Lion's Arch. They promised "a strange challenge," "a brutal whupping," and "a bloody massacre," depending upon which group member was giving the report. Soon, the taverns rang with speculation about the mystery challengers.

But even Edge of Steel knew little about their opponents. Just after laying down their challenge, the foes had vanished through an asura gate. They were a complete mystery.

As Edge of Steel worried about their unknown foes, Lion's Arch boiled into a frenzy over them.

Then the night of the match came.

Crowds clogged the streets all around the arena, shutting down traffic as they jostled to get inside the huge overturned ship. The stands filled with hundreds and then thousands. Banners announced the crowd's favorite-Edge of Steel-but no one knew the name of the challengers.

Then the time for battle came, and Sangjo ascended the announcer's tower to call out, "Welcome, everyone, to tonight's epic spectacle. The famous versus the obscure, the known versus the unknown. The heroes versus the villains. Many have asked who these challengers may be. Now is the moment you will see for yourselves. Here they are, Dragonspawn's Destiny!"

The crowd leaped to its feet, applauding and cheering-craning to see what great menace would emerge from the gladiators' hold.

The barred gate rolled back, and from the darkness waddled two tiny asura onto the newly sanded arena floor.

A rumble of uncertainty answered, followed by a roar of derisive laughter. These two? They looked like aphids. Shouts of outrage began to pierce the laughter.

"What is this?"

"No!"

"A joke!"

Then, a towering norn warrior stepped from the darkness, dragging a huge bow from her shoulder. She drew from her quiver three heavy-headed arrows, each bolt the height of a man. When a great black wolf loped out beside the woman, the furor of the crowd died down, and a few people began to chant, "Wolves! Wolves! Wolves!"

But then the men rolled the gates closed. No more wolves emerged-no more creatures at all.

Heckling shouts filled the stands.

"And now, the team you have come to cheer for, the champions of the arena, the undefeated. They are Caithe, Rytlock, and Logan, but you know them better as Edge of Steel!"

The air turned solid with cheers.

From a gate on the opposite side of the arena trotted the sylvari, charr, and human, and the shouts redoubled. The gladiators lifted their hands in greeting, and the fans responded with a growing chant.

"Edge of Steel! Edge of Steel! Edge of Steel!"

"And now, let the match begin!"

Rytlock ripped Sohothin from its stone scabbard and stabbed it skyward. The blade added its hungry roar to the roar of the crowd. Logan meanwhile lifted his war hammer from his belt and swung it in a series of deadly figure eights. Caithe pulled the daggers from her bandoliers and twirled them before her. The three stared across the arena sands at the norn, her wolf, and the two asura.

The storm of cheers quieted, and a watchful hush fell over the crowd.

Edge of Steel stood, waiting.

So did Dragonspawn's Destiny. They didn't move a muscle.

"What's taking them so long?" Rytlock asked.

Logan said, "Probably terrified."

The members of Dragonspawn's Destiny still stayed put.

"Probably planning something," Caithe said.

An ugly rumble began in the crowd and rose like a wave.

"Don't they care that they look like idiots, just standing there?" Logan asked.

Rytlock snarled. "Don't we?"

With that, he strode forward and broke into a run. Sand flew up in a dust cloud behind him.

"Let's go," Logan said with a sigh, bolting after his comrade.

Caithe lit out as well, catching up to Logan, who caught up to Rytlock. Side by side, the gladiatorial champions charged across the sands toward their mysterious foes.

Dragonspawn's Destiny had still not moved. They seemed frozen in fear.

Rytlock roared a war cry, and his comrades took it up.

At last, the norn warrior moved. She nocked three arrows, hoisted her huge bow, and let fly. The arrows arced up above the sands and then came whistling down toward Edge of Steel.

"Dodge!" Logan called out, swerving to one side as Caithe and Rytlock swerved to the other.

The arrows swerved as well, falling upon them.

"Knock them away!" Logan cried, swinging. His war hammer cracked the shaft that angled toward him, but the head of the arrow sprung open, releasing a metal net. It spread over him and draped to his feet. He tripped and sprawled to the ground, seeing that Rytlock and Caithe were down as well. "Damn it!"

Logan struggled to get free, but the metal mesh clung to his armor. He fought against it, managing to drag the clinging stuff from his left arm. His right was still fouled.

The norn warrior rushed across the sands toward him, pulling a heavy mallet from her belt.

Desperate, Logan stood up, though the mesh still clung to his war hammer.

The norn was there, and her mallet fell like thunder.

Logan tried to leap aside, but the maul smashed his breastplate and sent him tumbling across the sand. He rolled to a stop and staggered up, finally yanking his war hammer free. The norn warrior was stalking toward him, her red hair gathered in braids.

This was not going to be an easy fight.

Rytlock, too, was in trouble. He had scrambled up from the metal net but had left Sohothin within it, hopelessly tangled and sending up metallic smoke.

Worse, the dire wolf was upon him. It leaped for his throat, its jaws gaping.

Rytlock crouched, curling into a ball.

The wolf's massive teeth closed over the neck piece of his armor. The fangs skirled on the metal as the wolf flew past, carried by its momentum. It pounded to the ground just beyond Rytlock and turned, snarling.

He rose and snarled back, his claws out.

The dire wolf eyed him and began to circle, looking for a chance at the charr's throat.

Rytlock laughed. "You look flammable to me. If I had my sword, there'd be wolf on the menu."

The dire wolf lunged, fangs bared. It bashed into Rytlock and knocked him to his back. Its teeth snapped just short of his throat. Roaring, the charr raked his claws down the wolf's neck, drawing blood. The beast reared back and brought its massive forepaws down to pound Rytlock's chest. Breath blasted from his lungs, and once again the wolf lunged for his throat. Rytlock rolled aside, and the wolf got a snoutful of sand. It sneezed massively and bounded off the charr.

Rytlock scrambled to his feet and struggled to regain his breath. The air around was thick with shouts. The crowd chanted, "Edge of Steel!" but also, "Des-ti-ny!"

They didn't care which team won. They only wanted a spectacle, and they were getting it.

On one side of the arena, Logan and the norn warrior traded hammer blows. On the other, Rytlock and the dire wolf circled each other, snarling. That left one other member of Edge of Steel, the one who always struck the killing blow…

Caithe, too, had escaped her net, and she stalked toward the two asura. They lingered near the arena wall as if petrified. She had a dagger for each one, and she could easily plant them from thirty paces. She was nearly in range. Flipping a blade in her hand, Caithe caught the keen tip of it and raised it to throw at the male asura.

But he threw something first-a handful of red sand. It flew out and whiffed down in front of Caithe.

Did he want to blind her? He would have to throw better than that.

Caithe took two more steps. In range. She threw her daggerExcept that the ground shifted underfoot, and the blade spun off-target, only nicking the asura's ear.

He didn't even flinch, focused instead on the sand beneath her feet. It was mounding up. The asura spread his fingers toward the ground, and it rose in response.

Caithe's feet sank to midcalf in the clinging sand. She tried to pull them free but plunged to her knees. Clawing the stuff only trapped her hands as well.

Quicksand! But it wasn't watery. It was firm-like muscle.

A huge sand creature was emerging beneath her. Its back arched from the arena floor and revealed a head with pointed ears. Caithe's feet were mired in its shoulder. Sand sifted away to reveal broad but stumpy arms and stocky legs. The golem stood to full height-a gigantic asura in the likeness of the older asura.

The golem moved as the asura moved. He lifted a hand to his shoulder and pressed firmly down, and the golem's hand lifted the same way, driving Caithe to midthigh in the sandy golem. She stabbed the thing with her daggers, but the blades only sank away, lost in the all-consuming sand.

Caithe shouted for help, but her teammates couldn't possibly hear over the roar of the crowd.

Why are they laughing? Logan wondered, but he had no time to look.

The norn's mallet thrummed the air. Logan leaped aside as the maul cratered the ground. He hurled his own maul around in a sudden, desperate stroke. The head missed the norn but struck the handle of her mallet, breaking it. The blow also jarred the norn's hands. She staggered back.

It was Logan's first opening, and he took it.

Spinning, he whirled the war hammer in a moaning circle.

The norn tried to leap away, but the hammer struck a glancing blow to her ribs. Crack! Breath blasted from her. She staggered back, fell to the ground, and gasped.

A cheer resonated from the crowd.

Logan turned and saw that Caithe was half-buried in the shoulder of a-what was that thing? A sand golem?

He ran toward the golem, raised his hammer, and brought it down against the golem's leg. Steel struck sand and flung away a divot of it. The remaining sand, though, grabbed hold of his weapon. Logan pulled it free and struck again, blasting more sand away. The leg was thinning, the golem tottering. Logan chopped like a lumberjack.

The golem reached its massive hand down to grab him, but Logan dodged away. He smashed one of the sandy fingers, obliterating it. Still the hand reformed and took another swipe at him.

As Logan spun out of reach, he glimpsed the little asura making the same motions as the big one: a puppeteer.

Ducking another attack, Logan rushed up to the asura, hoisted him off his feet, turned him over, and shook him. A golden laurel fell from his head.

Twenty feet behind him, the golem toppled onto its back and shuddered. Sand sifted away from Caithe's legs, and she clawed her way out of the dissolving monster.

A great cheer erupted.

"Let him go!" came a shout.

Logan turned to see the other asura, the apprentice, staring him down. He laughed. "Let him go or what?"

"Or this!" she responded, flinging her hands out.

A bolt of lightning erupted from her grip, smashing into Logan and hurling him across the sands. His nerveless hand lost hold of the asura, who toppled separately. Logan also dropped his hammer. It tumbled to the ground as he did. Logan staggered up, jangled by the blast, and grabbed his hammer in numb fingers.

Meanwhile, the asura apprentice flung the powerstone laurel to her master. He donned it somewhat dizzily.

From the sands, the huge golem mounded up, taking shape again and hulking to its feet. As the asura puppet master marched in place, the sand golem lumbered toward Caithe.

"No!" Logan roared, and ran toward the golemancer.

The sand golem meanwhile snatched up Caithe in one fat fist.

Logan was ten feet from the golemancer when another bolt of blue blasted into him and hurled him back.

He crashed over the sands only to have sands crash over him: the sandy fist. That damned golem clutched him in one hand and clutched Caithe in the other and ran toward Rytlock.

Rytlock turned to escape, but the wolf lunged against his back and knocked him down.

Next moment, the lumbering golem arrived and slumped down, burying Rytlock to his chest.

There was a moment of stunned silence in the arena as the norn warrior strode back to join her battle-scarred wolf and the two asura geniuses.

Then all eyes shifted to Edge of Steel, buried in sand.

The crowd erupted. Every voice shouted, every hand clapped, and the roar of it all evolved into the cry "Des-ti-ny! Des-ti-ny! Des-ti-ny!"

In the infirmary beneath the arena, the two gladiatorial teams met once again. Chirurgeons tended Garm's many claw wounds and Rytlock's many bite marks; they set Eir's broken ribs and Snaff's dislocated shoulder. But most of all, they kept Edge of Steel from murdering Dragonspawn's Destiny.

Rytlock roared, "You hid a golem in the arena!"

"We're golemancers," Snaff replied. "What did you think we were going to do? Stand there and get slaughtered?"

"Actually, yes."

Eir gasped as the chirurgeon set plaster to her bruised side. "Then you failed to plan."

"Of course we didn't plan," Rytlock snarled. "We're fighters, not engineers."

"Which is why you need us," Zojja put in.

"We don't need anybody," Rytlock spat.

"We defeated you," Eir said. "You're not invincible. But together, we can be."

"Why would we ever join you?"

"Because we own you now," Eir said. "We made a bet with Captain Magnus the Bloody Handed, and we won your billet."

Rytlock convulsed, his claws raking out and narrowly missing his chirurgeons. "Damn it!"

"You have no choice," Eir said coolly. "You will go with us to fight the Dragonspawn."

Rytlock was trembling with fury, unable to speak.

Logan set a hand on his shoulder. "She's right. Trick or no trick, we've got to go."

Snaff winced as a chirurgeon set a hot towel on his shoulder. "The fact is, you three aren't gladiators."

"Aren't we?" barked Rytlock.

Snaff shook his head. "Of course not. You're heroes. You don't need to fight trumped-up battles against prearranged foes." He looked around at the stone ceiling. "You should be out beneath the sky, fighting real monsters."

Rytlock, Logan, and Caithe looked at each other, unsure what to say.

Snaff sighed. "We went after you because you were the heroes we needed. We set this whole thing up, crossed continents, designed golems, bet with our own lives to win your billet and to win you to our side. Yes, we can force you to join us, but we don't want henchmen. We want heroes."

Again, the members of Edge of Steel traded glances.

At last, Logan spoke for them all. "Tell us about the lair of the Dragonspawn."

From Her Royal Majesty, Jennah,

Queen of Kryta,

Regent of Ascalon

To Logan Thackeray

Greetings:

I have received word that you and your comrades are leaving the arena to go on a quest. Congratulations. I always felt that your courage was wasted on gladiators: you were meant for greater things.

But I fear that this quest is beyond even a hero such as yourself. Dragon champions are not to be trifled with. They are of themselves tremendously powerful, but they also tap into the inexhaustible power of their lords, the Elder Dragons. This Dragonspawn is the greatest champion of ancient and wicked Jormag and has destroyed countless heroes-whole companies of norn.

As your queen, I could forbid you to do this thing, but I have seen you defeat a legion of charr. I have seen you slay devourers and destroyers, centaurs and ettins and worse. If anyone could defeat the Dragonspawn, it would be you.

So, I will not forbid it. I will trade fear for hope and look forward to congratulating you on this latest and greatest of your victories.

Your queen,

Jennah