Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [62]
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 dagger—
Except 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