Halls of Ivory
Chapter 2 - The Signing of Gendarran Fields
Since the spread of the human race across Tyria and their establishment of the kingdom of Ascalon, the Charr from the northern highlands of Grothmar had always launched occasional, barely organized assaults at the kingdom of Ascalon south of their homeland. In 1070 After Exodus, two and a half centuries prior to the Pact's emergence and Zhaitan's defeat, otherworldly entities gifted the Charr a tool that would ensure their success. The Searing Cauldron magnified the efficacy of their flame shamans' rituals, allowing them to incinerate the entire country - lands more vast than most people could comprehend - all at once. Transforming the bright golden forests, meadows and farmland into dead, barren wastes covered in ash and killing most of the Ascalonians in the process.
What the survivors described experiencing it sounded more like an apocalypse than an attack. Large rocks of burning brimstone falling from the sky, the land itself catching fire and continuing to burn through any attempts to quench the flames. Surges of concentrated fire bursting from the ground so brightly, that they burned the eyes of anyone who caught their sight, only to give away to portals that spawned red, horned creatures born from living flame. It was a traumatic event for everyone who witnessed it and they made sure to never let future generations forget what had been done to them. In their eternal pursuit of new territory, the Charr continued to launch assaults against humans, this time aimed at both Kryta as well as Ebonhawke, a fortified city built and inhabited by what of Ascalon's surviving people managed to survive without fleeing west.
Centuries later, Queen Jennah from Doric and Salma's line of descent sought out talks with the Imperators of three out of the four Charr legions that now inhabited Ascalon in an attempt to draft and sign a peace treaty. The 'Treaty of Ebonhawke' left many people questioning her sanity. She demanded no more than a ceasefire of nondescript length and in exchange, offered to rescind any and all claims to Ascalonian land on behalf of the Ascalonians. It was widely seen as a slap to the face of every Ascalonian, whether those in Kryta or those in Ebonhawke. But when she made the journey to the city, it was placed under joint occupation by several military forces. With the weapons of the Charr, Kryta's Seraph as well as the Lionguard from Lion's Arch all aimed at the Ascalonians' throats, they reluctantly agreed to host the peace talks.
To this day, many Ascalonians held this imposition against her and hoped to find some way to break the peace between the humans and Charr, so that they could take the fight to their enemy and retake their homeland once more.
The road to the settlement was much more busy than on his way to Lion's Arch. Humans and Charr alike, many of them soldiers, travelled alongside the Commander. The Charr were large, hairy creatures from the far north-east with four ears sticking out to the sides and messy fur in shades ranging from grey to gold, to brown. They were hunched forward, had the tail and face of a lion, but some lacked the mane. What this deficit lost them in intimidation, they made up with the large pairs of horns they sported. They had a long and bloody history with an infinite supply of small wars raging between either the larger legions or the smaller warbands.
The season of the Phoenix had long passed and made way for the colder Scion, the humans including himself had long taken to wearing their warmer clothing. The Charr simply marched out with the same armors and clothing they wore throughout the year. Understandable, since their true homeland wasn't in Ascalon, but far to the north. The bristly fur alone did a lot to ward off the cold.
When he reached the settlement, an entire battalion of Charr marched along, with long, three-wheeled war machines in tow that the Commander had never seen in use before.
Their infantry marched in formation around an even more broad-shouldered fellow of theirs with four prominent horns, clad in even heavier plate armor. A notable aspect of his armor was that vents atop his chestplate glowed with a blistering heat from within, similar to the high-powered armors of the Dredge.
Curious about who that was, he greeted one of the Charr and gestured towards the one at the center of the formation. "Excuse me for asking, but is this one of your Tribunes?"
The Charr laughed. "Tribunes? That's our Imperator. You're looking at Smodur the Unflinching, Imperator of the Iron Legion." So that was who Scarlet meant by 'Charr-in-chief'. Considering that, it was probably best to avoid getting into trouble. So the Commander moved quite a stretch aside to not risk the Imperator or his guards running into him.
Even the expansion to the Ascalon settlement's size made little impact on how the people gathering didn't fit inside the walls. The settlement was completely swamped upon the Commander's arrival.
Not just the inside, the entire area around the walls and the new towers was covered in crowds of people trying to get in or at least catch a glance of what was going on at the centre. Some were Seraph, Kryta's royal army, who drew their name from shape of a wing forged onto their armors. Others were Iron Legion soldiers and yet others were human farmers and others commoners from the many farmsteads built into the otherwise untouched landscape.
When he made his way to one of the crowds, one member of that crowd took note of him. A Charr with short horns and grey, spotted fur, dressed in a suit of brown leather. No hood, no cape, everything he wore was wrapped tightly like a second skin. Several daggers dangled off notches on his belt and a long rifle held by a long holster hung off his back. He walked right up to him.
He waved at the Commander but didn't say anything until he was close enough to hear without speaking up too loudly. "Commander, what a surprise to see you."
"You recognize me?"
The Charr bowed. "Grell Nightblade, Iron Legion. I ran recon in Orr with an entire warband of snipers."
"You….seem more like the Ash Legion type."
"I like using new gear effectively more than making it. As a human would say: You can eat a loaf of bread without knowing how to bake it."
A Charr using human idioms was unusual, but the Commander thought nothing of it. "I suppose that makes sense."
"So, if you made your way here you heard of what's going on here. How much do you know?"
"Not much, just that her majesty and Imperator Smodur will attend. How about you?"
The Charr looked around to check who might be watching or listening. "Nothing from first hand sources, so nothing solid. Only speculation based on who she's been visiting and receiving at her palace. If it turns out true, it's basically every Separatist's doomsaying made real."
"Do you think they'll launch an attack?"
"Not sure. I've got people set up around the premises either way. We have every ranged position and several emergency exits secured. Whole queen's entourage is here, too. Thackeray, the Countess, a bunch of ministers, the whole posse."
"You think we can make it far enough inside to see it from up close?"
"If you're here, no doubt." Grell ran ahead and shouted into the crowd.
After a few moments, the crowd stirred and Logan Thackeray, the heavily armored captain of the Seraph, Queen Jennah's most ardent admirer, and her most hopeless suitor, came through with the crowd parting to make way for him. "Commander. If I had known you would come, I would have arranged for people to let you through." As always, the captain elected to make his presence known, refusing to wear a helmet so that even people who never saw him could at least recognize him by the long, loose brown hair.
"Thank you. I'm curious to see what this is all about."
"If I'm honest I don't know either. Jennah insisted on keeping that to herself until the speech." That wasn't unusual for her. Being in her mid-to-late twenties, the queen sported the confidence of a monarch her age. She conducted her rule with a very secretive and authoritative approach, never seeing fit to dignify even higher officials' questions with so much as a response. Even things one would consider obvious or crucial, such as securing an heir, seemed to her like non-issues that she was to be trusted with blindly, lest one face consequences for questioning her judgment.
"I won't lie though…" the captain continued. "Things are fickle. Lots of the people attending aren't sure if they approve big sweeping treaties being discussed without them knowing. With Ascalonians face to face with Charr, tensions are high. If we aren't careful, someone might provoke a fight. Or worse, Separatists could make their move. Or Caudecus." Most of the Separatists opposing the queen were ethnic Ascalonians, descendants of a once grand and beautiful kingdom east of both Kryta and the Shiverpeaks. Deprived of a homeland, forced into refuge in Kryta, only to see its queen sign away the ownership of their country to their mortal enemy. They had good reason to not take kindly to Charr. Any form of diplomacy with Charr was precarious when conducted in a place like this.
Grell stepped between them. "I wouldn't worry about that. I've got my best men on the case. I'm sure things will go smoothly and according to plan."
"That's good to hear. Let's not waste any more time then."
With Logan clearing out the crowd, they were all able to get inside to join the people around the square. Though the inside of the settlement's walls was no less crowded than the outside. Everyone was squashed against several people, just by standing.
When Smodur arrived, an entire gate cleared out and allowed him and his guards to pass and climb onto one of the wooden stages, kept empty just for him. By that time, the queen was already sitting near her podium, in her revealing silken dress. At her side stood Countess Anise, pale, with long, obsessively combed red hair and in one of her many identical deep-blue dresses with tiny blades hanging off its corset and one shoulder covered in a leather shoulderpiece, while the other lay completely exposed.
She was the confidante and the head of the Shining Blade, the ancient order that comprised Jennah's personal guards as well as her eyes and ears inside the kingdom and out. Once Smodur had taken up position on his podium, it didn't take long for Anise to call for people to quiet down and the queen to begin her speech.
"Humans of Kryta, Charr of Ascalon. It has been barely a year since I met with the Imperators of the great legions of the Charr and signed the treaty of Ebonhawke. Bringing a several century long conflict to an end. We have since accomplished so many great things together. We have banded together to fend off the Flame Legion, allowed the forging of the Pact that brought an end to Zhaitan's reign over the sea to the south, aided the Norn and Sylvari in driving back their enemies, the Dredge, the Sons of Svanir, the Inquest and the Nightmare Court."
She went on. "Example after example in this past year has shown me one thing: The apprehension I had in resigning all human claims to Ascalon's clay was unfounded. It has led us only from victory to victory ever since."
One heckler from within the crowd shouted: "But how has it helped us? How did humans benefit?"
"We have benefited through our cooperation with the Charr in important missions. The Charr, the Sylvari, the Asura and the Norn are our allies now and their enemies are our enemies. Defeating their enemies is a victory for us as well."
"Do we get any of the spoils of those victories?"
Now a second one joined in. "Yeah, what's in 'winning' for us? We're being duped, this reeks of incompetence." They weren't wearing the usual plain clothes city workers had, these were locals. Ascalonians most likely.
Countess Anise stepped forward and pointed directly at the second heckler. "Enough is enough! This is your queen you're talking to. Show her the respect she is owed! She knows what she's doing, you don't. I guarantee you, she is stronger and smarter than all of you combined."
Grell, squashed right next to the Commander, couldn't suppress a chuckle. "Stronger and smarter, yeah right." The Commander gave him a questioning look, but the Charr shrugged in response. "Don't worry about it."
Anise's outburst managed to quieten the crowd and allow Jennah to continue. "As I was saying. Since the treaty of Ebonhawke, I have seen us achieve victory after victory after victory. Our cooperation made this possible. I know that some may be discontent with handing over Ascalon to the Charr, but that was what made this cooperation possible."
She cleared her throat. "And so to deepen the trust between the Charr and my people, I've decided to deepen our agreements with them. Anise, the treaties." The Countess walked a few steps to a servant to hold up two scrolls and hand one of each to Jennah and Smodur.
"To deepen our trust with them, I have drafted this new treaty that will secure our work together for the future. So long as Divinity's Reach, the city and its walls and most importantly, my own home remain untouched, I am happy to relinquish any and all claim and ownership of the lands of Kryta to the Iron Legion. Humans are no longer the people of Kryta. The Charr are now the new Krytans."
"What?"
"This is preposterous!"
"You can't just give away our homes like this!" Even before she was finished, the cries of discontent were heard all around. The Commander could understand where they were coming from. These people had homes all over Kryta. The farmland was their livelihood. Were they supposed to just leave all that behind and flee elsewhere like the Ascalonians centuries before? It was as if the war had never ended. People - including himself, just thought it had because one of their enemies happened to be their queen.
Kryta in its natural state was a humid forest. An altered extension of the Maguuma jungle to the west. Under its human inhabitants, the land had been shaped into a lush green paradise, with lots of secure farmland replacing the hostile wildlands that once made it up. Was it just supposed to turn into a second Ascalon? Even more landscapes left barren for lack of care, drenched in the brown and yellow of dead plants? Combined with more brown where the centaurs trampled the grass before it could even grow?
What was she thinking?
The Seraphs tried to clear the unrest by drawing their weapons and pointing them at the crowd. "Back off from the stage!" A servant exchanged the contracts so that Jennah and Smodur could each sign both.
The shouting from disgruntled citizens continued but one instance of that stood out from the rest. "Centaurs! Centaur attack! An entire horde of Centaurs!"
"Centaurs? Now?" The soldiers on both sides forced the crowds to disperse around the gates until they spotted an entire herd of armed centaurs to the north galloping straight towards the walls.
"Ready your weapons!" Logan was about to take up the initiative until Jennah called him off.
"That won't be necessary. I'll scare them off myself. Stand by and watch." She walked over to the third stage that connected hers and Smodurs, which was completely empty besides herself and went through the motions of a more advanced mesmeric incantation. The pink sparks shooting from her fingers raced up into the air and within a few seconds, an image of the shatterer soared across the sky. A giant dragon consisting of self-bending metal plates and rings, held together by pure, purple-glowing brand magic.
The illusory shatterer roared and released its deadly breath upon the ground north of the settlement.
The soldier that had alarmed them about the centaurs spoke up again. "They're not stopping, they're charging ri-"
Before he could go on, an extremely loud noise - four bangs in quick succession - interrupted him. The illusory dragon vanished and in one sudden surge, the queen was launched off the stage and face-first onto the ground. Logan cried out: "Jennah!" Most other people had barely registered that it had happened when the four bangs repeated themselves and were accompanied by sudden movements on the queen's part.
They were gunshots and Logan quickly pointed upwards. "The Towers! Enemy up the towers!" Anyone armed with bows or rifles pointed their weapons up at the outlooks at the top of the towers and ground troops opened or kicked in the doors at the bottom. Several royal staff besides Logan rushed the stage and surrounded the queen's body.
"The Centaurs are gone!"
One of the lieutenants replied in Logan's stead. "Gone?"
"They just vanished!"
"Then they were an illusion. Everyone not combat ready leave and the rest storm those damn towers!"
The Commander readied his dagger as well as the matching vampiric enchantment and joined the others around one tower to the east. One iron legion soldier kicked in the door and led the way up the stairs, but even at the top of the tower there was no-one to be found. "Clear!"
The Commander peeked over the cover into the other towers, but couldn't spot any enemies in those either.
After that, things slowed down to a somber slog. Soldiers came back down from all the towers, and gathered around the perimeter set by the queen's guards. They cleared out several yards around Logan, who held a lifeless queen, soaked in her own blood. Several priests were there too, throwing any and all healing spells they had at her, emitting gold or blue rays of light, hoping one of them would work.
Grell walked back up next to the Commander and mumbled: "Ding-dong, the queen is dead."
The Commander ignored him and walked as close as the Seraphs would let him. "Logan, what happened?"
Logan struggled to not start sobbing. "They shot her." Sizable metal slabs peeked out of the sides of her skull. She seemed pretty dead to the Commander. The head of the Seraph leaned down to check her pulse and got up. "She's dead…no! No it can't be! Keep healing her, don't hold back! Use everything" The public gasped and erupted in outrage. Except for the local Ascalonians who cheered and applauded this turn of events. "Who are you clapping for? Show some respect!"
One of the hecklers from earlier answered: "Respect for what? Not getting screwed over any more?"
To say that Logan took issue with this attitude was an understatement. "You keep going and I'll have you tried!"
"For what? Clapping without a license?"
Their shouting match wouldn't last though, as it was soon drowned out by strange thunders. From the side of the settlement where the Iron legion stood guard, the snarling voices of Charr gave an inkling of where it came from. "What are those meteors?"
"Meteors, more and more of them, there's some kind of meteor shower!"
The Commander turned around and rushed past the walls to see for himself. A growing black cloud enveloped the sky above and made its way here. The cloud itself ignited and seemed to burn, lighting up the sky. The beaches and prairies were engulfed in flame and burning rocks shot down from above. He was struck with enough terror to freeze for a moment when he recognized it.
He knew what this was. Every human with a modicum of schooling had seen illustrations of this in history books. He took a deep breath to shout from the top of his lungs, hoping to shake everyone out of any leftover confusion: "A Searing! Someone's using a searing cauldron! The fire's coming this way! This whole place is going to go up in flames."
The idea itself was crazy, so at first no-one believed him. But as more humans took a look themselves and recognized the meteors and the spreading flames from seeing the drawings and paintings in their own childhood, they started bearing the same tone. "It's true! It's all real, the Searing is happening again!"
"It's coming here!" And it was. It all started from far away, off by the edge of the lake, but it spread and came closer and closer.
"Calm down everyone!" Grell jumped into action and sprinted to a corner between two buildings. He pulled away a cloth covered in gravel and revealed a trap door made of heavy metal, which he pulled and slammed open. "Get inside, we're prepared for something just like this."
The Charr were the first to follow. Humans were a bit apprehensive. Instead of waiting and herding people inside though, he ran to a different, similarly remote location. The Commander followed him and watched him pull away another cloth which hid another trap door just like the first one. "There's several of these all around here. Come on guys! Move, the fire won't wait for you."
The humans didn't know what to do. The nobles and Seraphs couldn't say it out loud, but they didn't trust the Charr and the commoners from the settlement blurted out why: "First the queen sells us out to the Charr, then she dies and there's a Searing! We're supposed to believe it's safe in there?"
The Charr continued, unimpressed by the humans' unwillingness to follow suit. He pulled open a third trap door behind a small arena. "If you want to stay up here and die, be my guest."
But they wouldn't listen. And Logan as well as the queen's entourage were clearly too much in shock to do something about it. The Commander had to step in. He climbed onto the late queen's stage, cleared his throat and addressed all the humans and leftover Charr. "Everyone, listen. We have to get inside before the flames get to us. We can either stay out here and die for certain or take our chances with those hideouts."
The thief in question raised his finger after pulling open the last door. "It's all one bunker, those all connect to each other. There's air vents, supplies, everything. Either way, come in or not but I've got to close those doors soon."
The Commander jumped back off the stage and started outright pushing citizens to one of the trapdoors. "Come on! All our lives are at stake here! Call out anyone from inside the buildings! Get them down there!"
"The buildings all have entrances to the same bunker. They're Ascalonians, this whole place was built with Searings in mind. Just tell them what's going on!"
Smodur gave orders based on this. "You heard them, Iron Legion! Search all the buildings for humans and find the doors to the bunkers! Flip over any furniture you need to get to them! If they have cellars, that's where they'll be!"
With the Charr showing little patience and physically forcing them if necessary, the families came around to going into hiding. The Commander returned to Logan, who still stood over the queen. Now staring at her without a word.
Countess Anise was just as incapable of accepting Jenna's death, continuously trying to shake her into waking up. But from up close, the Commander could see her skull cracked open where a lot of the blood was coming from. And this wasn't even mentioning the similar wound in her chest. The objects that had done this still stuck out and they were very long for regular bullets.
The priests of Dwayna continuously evoked blue rejuvenating hues around the queen's body. Necromancy could raise a body temporarily, but not bring back the person themselves, not entirely at least. Especially not if their bodies were damaged so heavily that they would die again upon revival.
The first meteors were already hitting the walls, with so much force that bits of stone were launched everywhere. The queen's entourage was still out of it, so the Commander tried grabbing Logan by his right shoulderplate and drawing him out of his stupor that way. "Logan, we're running out of time, we need to go."
"No. We've got to - what about Jennah? We can't just leave her here."
"Then bring her body with you so we can give her a proper burial. You've got to accept that she's dead. Look at her head, it's burst right open!"
Him saying that caused one of the female priests to cry. Logan pushed the Commander away and almost sent him stumbling. "Watch your tongue!"
Anise finally got up. "No. He's right. Dying out here won't help anyone. She wouldn't want that either."
At last, the Captain saw reason and the Seraphs got to carrying the queen's body to one of the trap doors just in time for the last few people to slip inside and for Grell to pull the door shut behind them.
The door was so heavy, you could feel the impact when it closed. The Charr held up a lantern and went further inside the dark stone tunnel. "There's a more secure door right there." And there was. That one wasn't even a hatch or a trap door, it was a straight up vault door. Reinforced, made of a much less tainted alloy and secured with a lock that required turning it to open or close.
Shutting it by itself wasn't enough. It took the combined effort of most of the men present to properly secure it. The interior of this bunker was a confusing network of close tunnels and corridors.
Countless voices of all kinds convulsed into an indeterminate background noise that made understanding anyone without being up close impossible. Women cried in outrage over having to abandon their belongings. Children and infants cried in confusion over what had unfolded around them. All this time, the Commander had been in overdrive, witnessing every second as if it were ten, but for most of the civilians, it must have all happened so quickly.
They could hear the impacts from down here and the Commander was confused as to how they weren't running out of air to breathe. By the time he found Grell and wanted to ask him, Logan was holding him by the collar. "How did this happen? Before everything went haywire you TOLD me that you had your best men on the case!"
Grell didn't respond in the way expected from a Charr. He didn't fight back, he didn't pull himself off, he was careful about how he handled this. He answered with a lowered voice. "I did, but I lost contact when it happened."
The captain screamed at him "So where are they?"
"No idea."
"Not good enough." Logan lost control and punched the side of Grell's face.
Seeing things get violent spurred the Imperator into action. "This man saves your lives and you thank him by raising your hand against him."
"Our queen is dead! There isn't much to be thankful for!"
"Not my problem. The treaty is signed. Nightblade, are we stuck down here?"
Grell shook his head. "No, there are several tunnels that lead to hidden exits. I can take you to one."
Logan let go of Grell and turned to Smodur. "You can't be serious about the treaty! No-one would have agreed if they had known."
"My hands are tied. The moment you trusted her to be your monarch, you signed off on everything she went on to do. Including Ebonhawke and including this. There's plenty of Charr out there itching to claim more territory. And unlike humans, they question authority and smell weakness a mile away. I show any myself and I'm in trouble."
The anger slowly faded from the Seraph and made way for concern. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you had better make use of every minute you have once we're back out there. Here's how this will go: I'll slowly make my way back to the Citadel. When I arrive, I'll talk about this. And when I'm done, the legions will come to Kryta. You have until then to either leave or prepare in some other way. If you don't - if you're lucky, they'll only evict you. I wouldn't bet on those odds though. Iron Legion! Follow me. Lead the way, Nightblade."
"Wait - what do you mean 'some other way'? Stop!" Without further ado and without paying any more attention to calls from the Commander to reconsider their options, the Charr left. All of them.
The Charr slowly disappearing through a few of the corridors arranged roughly in the same direction made the bunker much more roomy. The narrow hallways, the dim lighting from the lanterns that were spread and held all around and the constant rumbling of the settlement turning into ruins gave off an oppressive feeling that could be seen on all the citizens' faces. The crowds dispersed as more and more civilians explored the tunnels. Some families seemed to know the way to some of the other hidden exits.
Meanwhile the Commander wanted to keep his priorities straight. He had lost sight of Logan. He couldn't have been far, so he rushed from intersection to intersection, checking all the twists and turns until he found himself running a circle around one path that only had one way in. A dead end, and upon checking that was where he found the Captain of the Seraphs.
Logan sat on the ground. Slumped together, back to the wall, staring on the ground. "Logan, how are you holding up?"
"I'm fine. You go ahead with the others."
The Commander got closer and leveled with him. "You don't seem fine. Maybe we shou-"
"Leave it, just go."
"No, I know how much she meant to you. I don't want you to do something rash."
Logan stayed quiet for a while and then raised his head. His eyes had reddened. "What's there to even go back to anymore? I dedicated my whole life to Kryta - and then to Jennah. Now both of those are gone. Just like that."
"It's not too late for Kryta. We can find a way to stop this. We can call for help from the Pact and stop this before it even begins."
"That might work. But even so, what'll we do without Jennah? What will I do without her?"
"I'm sorry if I have to be a little harsh but…Queen Jennah sold us out. Willingly. Knowingly. Maybe not you and me specifically, but she did so with the people of Kryta, and it includes us nonetheless. She would have you choose between serving her and serving Kryta."
Logan rested his head against the wall. "I can't even imagine doing that."
"And now you won't have to. Maybe this is an opportunity for you. Everyone knew about your…passive pursuit of the queen and everyone knew it was a fool's errand. Once we've dealt with the Charr, you could start a new chapter in your life. Without false hopes getting in the way."
"Maybe, maybe not. We'll see."
An awkward silence took hold between them, until the Commander broke it, offering Logan his hand to help him get up. "Come on. Let's find out how much the searing burned and see how much we can save."
"You're really not just going to leave me alone, are you?"
"Not a chance." Logan took him up on the offer, got back on his feet and followed him back into the more populated tunnels. Together, they followed the Ascalonians through the longer passageways to the surface. Unsure what exactly they would find when they arrived.
And thus, with the Searing of Gendarran Fields, the reign of Queen Jennah found its conclusion.