"Looks like a Dwarf," Sarraya said after the skeleton was unearthed.
So small, but obviously tenacious and brave. Like a wolverine.
"You want to camp here for tonight?" Sarraya asked.
"We don't have much choice," he replied. "But I don't think we should go into the city to do it. Let's pull back a ways."
"You afraid of ghosts?" she asked with a smile.
"I'm afraid of what might be hiding in those ruins," he replied soberly. "Sandmen are the least of our worries. A kajat could be hiding in there, and I don't fancy the idea of having one pay a visit after dark."
"How can something so big hide so well?" Sarraya complained as they turned around and started back up the incline.
"Practice," he replied absently.
They set up camp against a steep hillside, to at least narrow the avenues of possible invasion. The sand covered hill reflected the light of the fire quite nicely, illuminating much of their surroundings in the ruddy firelight. Sarraya ate her customary dinner of berries, nuts, and breads and pastries pilfered via Conjuring as Tarrin roasted a small umuni he had hunted down just before sunset. Umuni wasn't very tasty, but he was rightly tired of not having any meat. The poisonous lizard was a better meal than another Faerie dining experience. Tarrin looked down at the large city, wondering at who had lived there, what kind of people those Dwarves were. They had to be brave, if they were willing to sacrifice their entire race to stop the Demons. Very brave indeed. They had to be very smart and skilled to build such an impressive city. He had a feeling that they were a race of honor. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he was pretty sure of it. Probably nothing like the Selani or Vendari, whose honor was their lives, but still very honorable. They had to be tough fighters as well. It was sad that an entire race was snuffed out in the Blood War--not just one, for that matter--but at least those who were saved by the sacrifice of the Dwarves still honored their memory, and honored their heroism.
They still sang the songs. Songs of the Battle of the Line, the titanic clash between the Demons and the natives on the arid steppes of Arak, where the Dwarves had pushed back an army of darkness that would have run back over land that the natives had managed to reclaim from the Demonspawn. Songs of the what was simply called Last Battle, the last of the great battles that had caused the extinction of the Dwarven race, who had rallied to the last man, woman, and child around the banners of the native peoples, then marched headlong into death singing songs of glory. They had shown no fear, shown no regret for what they had done. They had thrown themselves against the Demonic horde, and though they had lost their people, their courage had won the war.
Trying to imagine doing such a thing was hard. He had no idea how he would react if he was called upon to sacrifice not only himself, but everything that he held dear, everything in the entire world that mattered to him, in order to stop something so terrible that there was no other way. It was a terrifying thought. He had no regard for throwing his own life away, but to do so knowing that all his family, all his friends, everything that he had ever known was going to die with him...it was something one did not even think in jest. Such a horrendous cost.
But the memory of the Dwarves lived on, lived on in the songs of the survivors, songs that were still sang to this day. So long as the songs called out over fires and within parlors and taprooms, the Dwarves would never be forgotten, and their memory would live on.
"You're quiet," Sarraya noted as she took a long drink from a tiny cup.
"Thinking of them," he said, motioning back towards the city. "I can't even imagine what they sacrificed."
"I don't want to imagine it," Sarraya said with a shudder. "But they saved us all, Tarrin. No matter how high the price they paid, it's something that we should never forget. We owe them that much."
"Amen," he nodded.
The rest of the night passed in relative peace and calm, but not for Tarrin. The twinge in the Weave was getting closer and closer, and he had a feeling that it was indeed Jegojah. He still couldn't pin a location to it, but it was coming towards him from the northwest, the direction he was going. That meant that any movement forward was going to bring it faster, and he may not be ready when the time came. What he was feeling was very vague, so he had no idea if it was half a desert away, or just on the other side of the ruined city. It told him that if he was going to move, it had to be back the way he came, to buy himself time.
But he had come from that way. There was nothing back there suitable enough for a showdown with the Doomwalker. The land was too open, and too verdant. He wouldn't be able to block off Jegojah's access to the land.
Stupid, stupid! He wanted a cluttered, rocky wasteland for a battlefied, and he was looking at one!
The ruins of the city would be perfect. They were rubble-strewn and broken, with lots of uneven terrain and many places to hide. The standing buildings and rocky piles created a landscape that favored him, the faster and more nimble of the combatants, and the entire city was either covered in rock or paved with stones under the sand. Sand itself was inorganic--it was a kind of rock--and that would deny the Doomwalker the power to draw energy from the land. Tarrin was a little bit wary of disturbing the sanctity of the ruins, one of the last few monuments of the memory of the Dwarves, but something deep inside him told him that the spirits of the Dwarves wouldn't mind too much if he knocked down a few buildings or trampled on a few graves. They had been willing to sacrifice everything for a noble cause. His cause may not have been as noble, but it was rather important. He didn't think they'd get too riled up. Beings of honor fully understood the purity of spirit involved in revenge.
That's all it was. Beating Jegojah to stay alive was a very distant alternate reason for what he intended to do. He intended to pay the Doomwalker back in kind for what it did to Faalken, nearly did to his family, and kept trying to do to him.
The ruins of the city would be his battleground. The Dwarves had stopped the Demons, now they were going to help him destroy an undead monster.
Tarrin shifted into his cat form and curled up by the fire. The first piece of the puzzle was in place. Now he just had to prepare for his playmate.
The new day dawned curiously warm and quite blustery for the desert. High winds whipped sand through the city, and though it wasn't a sandstorm, it was a good imitation of one. Tarrin had his visor on to protect against the stinging sand as they got ready to move that day, or at least Sarraya thought. Tarrin had spent most of the night considering what had to be done to get ready for Jegojah. He had to explore the city and find the best place to challenge it. He had to learn all the ground surrounding that chosen site, in case he had to retreat. He had to set up a few little tricks and annoyances to slow the Doomwalker down if he did have to retreat, and he also wanted to build at least one death-trap just in case things went so badly for him that destroying the Doomwalker's body became necessary. He doubted that Jegojah could withstand having a few large buildings dropped on him. Magical protection was one thing, but there were some things against which no amount of magic could defend. Tarrin had learned that the hard way, that invulnerability wasn't quite as invulnerable as one might think. Magic was no challenge to the almighty mastery of the great power known as Physics. The laws of physics told him that when a creature protected by magic was struck by something weighing as much as a large stone building, the magic wasn't going to protect the victim. It would buckle under the immense power attacking it. That power was physics.
He had much to do, and he wasn't sure how much time he had. But a few things he already knew, a few decisions had already been made.
"Alright then, you want to explore the city, or just move on?" Sarraya asked curiously.
"Neither," he said in a low, grim tone. "You have to do something for me, Sarraya."
"What?"
"Leave," he said intensely, his ears straight up and his eyes searching. "Jegojah is coming, and I don't want anything getting in the way. Not even you."
"Well!"
she huffed, putting her hands on her hips and getting in his face. "That's a fine 'good morning!' You think I'm going to get in the way, do you? I'll have you know that--"
"This isn't a discussion," he warned in a dangerous tone. "It's an order."
"An order!" she said scathingly. "You're not my mother, Tarrin! I'm not about to let you march down there and play your games without someone watching over you! I can take care of--"
She broke off when Tarrin's eyes ignited from within, his ears laid back, and he took a single step back to give him room to swat the Faerie out of the air. Sarraya's expression changed instantly from one of anger to one of fear. She gave him a wild look, laughing in a kind of nervous, apprehensive way. "You wouldn't really hurt me, would you Tarrin?" she asked fearfully.
"That's up to you, isn't it?" he asked in an ominously quiet voice. "I'm not playing, Sarraya. Not about this. Just go back the way we came a little ways and wait. You'll know when it's safe to come back."
"You're sure about this?" she asked hesitantly, but her expression wavered when she saw the intensity in his eyes. "I see you are," she sighed. "Alright, I won't argue. But if I hear something I don't like, I'm going to come. You can't stop me."
He didn't answer. He just stared at her for a moment longer, then turned and started walking away.
"Tarrin?" Sarraya called. Tarrin didn't look back, didn't answer. He wasn't giving her any excuse to try to drag things out, to try to worm her way into coming along. Sarraya could talk fast, and she knew that if she talked fast enough, the impulsive side of him may latch on to something she said and use it as an excuse for her to accompany him. So he robbed her of that advantage by not paying attention. "Tarrin, be careful! And hit it once for me! No, make that twice, I haven't forgotten what it did to me the last time it attacked us!"
Tarrin glanced over his shoulder at Sarraya, gave her an eloquent nod, and then stalked into the ruined city, leaving the Faerie hovering behind him, watching him go.
Tarrin didn't much like the idea of leaving Sarraya behind, but it was necessary. She was very useful in a fight, but this was not going to be a fight. This was going to be a duel. He didn't want any distractions, any possible chance that Jegojah could somehow get his hands on Sarraya and use her as a shield, or as a bargaining chip. Because of that, he didn't want her anywhere near them when Jegojah arrived.
The city was strangely expansive. It was a large city, but it was designed in such a way that it seemed spacious. Wide streets, buildings with large courtyards, avenues and parks--or maybe merchant squares, since the desert had long killed off any vegetation. The Dwarves had done an incredible job of stuffing many buildings into a confined space, yet making it seem like they had all the space in the world. To Tarrin, it looked like some massive village. Only the larger buildings seemed very big to him, given the tremendous difference in size between him and a Dwarf, making it look like some grand village rather than a large, bustling city. The single story buildings that Tarrin saw were short enough for him to look over their roofs, what few of them he managed to find. The vast majority of the standing buildings were at least three stories.
The wind died down, and with it came an eerie silence. The place was empty, not even populated by vermin or animals. Even his pad-softened footsteps were audible to him as he walked along rubble-choked avenues and down boulevards so wide that the collapsed buildings couldn't block them off. He was surveying the city with a tactical eye, looking for the ideal spot that was clear enough for a fight, yet contained enough rubble and debris to make footing treacherous for something that wore armor. One of those squares looked suitable, but the ones that he'd seen so far weren't large enough for his needs, or didn't have favorable surroundings. He wanted a place with escape routes, routes which he could trap should he have need to use them. But the place couldn't have too many ways to leave it. He had to funnel the Doomwalker in the ways he wanted it to go, or else his preparations would be meaningless.
The quiet suited him, but it also seemed unnatural. There wasn't even the sound of the wind anymore, and the wind should have been blowing at that time of the morning. There was nothing but quiet emptiness all around him, and his ears had begun to strain to seek out any sound not made by himself. The quiet made him a little jumpy, but he realized that it would be his ally. The Doomwalker, with its clunky metal armor, would make such a racket that he would hear it coming from longspans away.
He found what he was looking for at about noon, in what was probably the center of the city, and it nearly made him chuckle ruefully. It was the ruins of some ancient arena or stadium, which had been shattered at one end by a large tower that had fallen into the stands at that end. He walked around it and found that all but two of the entrances were blocked off by debris, and both of those opened into surprisingly narrow streets for the layout of the city, flanked by high buildings that looked to have been very important places in their day. The long pile of large stones on the far end of the arena gave an exit for someone nimble enough to move across such treacherous terrain, but would block something slow and ungainly. Then again, an exit could be found on any side for him, since he could make the jump from the floor of the arena up to the the lowest of the stands.
It was perfect. Tarrin stood at the top of the stands and looked down. The floor was covered in sand, but there were rocks and debris littered across its surface. It was about twenty spans from the floor to the stands, and the two usable exits were accessible only from the stands. Once something got down to the arena floor, it would have a hard time getting out unless it could jump.
It was ideal. Just enough open space, surrounded by obstacles. It was an easy place for him to leave, but not for his opponent. And the two narrow pathways between the buildings, he discovered after exploring them, were ideal for setting nasty little traps to slow down, or if needs be destroy, any pursuer.
This was the place.
Now that he had found his place, he got to work. He cleared away the smaller stones and debris on the sandy field, the kinds of things he could easily miss and trip over in the heat of battle. He left the larger stones and blocks, giving the arena floor some things to break up its open continuity, things to use in a fight for either offense or defense. Many of them were light enough for him to pick up and throw, yet were heavy enough to do considerable injury to whatever got hit by them. That task took him most of the afternoon, but he didn't stop, even to eat, afterward. He explored the large mountain of stony rubble that had once been a tower falling against what was the south side of the arena wall. The stones were large and pretty well set, but a stray foot could cause them to shift. That was ideal for him. He went up and down and up and down the pile of rubble, getting familiar with its contours, coming to know the best paths to use to climb up and down its faces. After that was done, he moved up into the stands, making sure there were no pitfalls, and arranging rocks and other things about so they were easy for him to reach, and he'd know where they were, so he could use them as projectiles.
The sun was beginning to set, so he wove together a bright ball of light, bright enough to scare away any Sandmen that may be haunting the ruins, and fixed it so it would follow him about. He climbed up onto the buildings flanking the narrow pathways one at a time, and then built his traps. They were very simple affairs, very big rocks he Conjured set to drop on foes who tripped ropes set along the pathways. His deathrap was another deadfall, but this one was a very large glass bubble filled with the most powerful acid he could remember from his schooling days in the Tower, an acid so potent that it could even eat through steel if it was given enough time. What it could not eat through, however, was glass, and that made the trap useful. It wouldn't threaten anyone unless the bubble was broken. That acid was dangerous, even to him. Acid was one of the few things that could do him permanent injury, and it was something he hoped he wouldn't have to use. No doubt that Jegojah would flail about after being doused with that potent stuff, maybe even keep fighting, and Tarrin may get burned by it as
well as it ate the Doomwalker's body down to nil.
The deathtrap on the other pathway wasn't acid, it was an absolutely massive stone set delicately so that it spanned the two buildings, and looked like the bottom side of some kind of bridge between the two buildings from underneath. It was on the pathway with the lower buildings, and it would be triggered by Tarrin himself, using Sorcery to break away the delicate supports that held it in place. Some experiments with smaller stones showed him the distance and speed necessary for him to trip it and get under it before it fell.
That done, Tarrin spent most of the rest of the night exploring the city directly around the arena. He learned every nook and cranny, every side street and alley, even the location and make-up of the many piles or rubble in the vicinity. He found every conceivable place to hide, every cubby hole or dark-shadowed corner.
He explored in his cat form every building within a longspan of the arena to look for those hiding places, and in so doing he was exposed to what the Dwarves had left behind. All the wood, paper, and cloth were long gone, leaving behind only the stone and metal things they made, but that was a significant amount. The Dwarves were adept at making stone furniture, believe it or not, probably softened with cushions and pillows. The faded paintings on the stone walls themselves, and some murals and frescos, showed him what the Dwarves had looked like. They were a short, stocky race, wide-shouldered and barrel-chested, with powerfully built arms and legs. They all had beards, even the women, and wore their hair long and braided in the artwork. Most of the art was depictions of battles and warriors, telling him that the race was a martial one, but there was no glorification of death and destruction in the art. It was a noble kind of art, Dwarves battling Ogres and Trolls and other Goblinoids, even one mural of a group of Dwarves fighting an actual Dragon, but no indications anywhere of them fighting with humans or Sha'Kar. So, it was a race of skilled warriors, but warriors who knew, understood, and enjoyed peace.
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