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.