Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [13]
“This,” Gyda bellowed as she staggered to her feet, ready to do battle again, “is a battle worthy of a norn!” She sounded winded but no less enthusiastic.
Dougal didn’t stop to watch what happened next. Instead, he clambered up the rope as fast as he could. He reached the floor of the upper chamber in an instant and hauled himself onto it. From there he scrambled back toward the room’s entrance, hoping that staying on all fours would distribute his weight enough that he would not break through the floor once more.
Skirting the hole Breaker had created, Dougal reached the threshold of the doorway, which seemed stable. Only then did he loosen the rope, which had bitten painfully into his wrist.
Dougal’s brain, the analytical part that admired the workmanship of a trap that had almost killed him, told him it was time to leave. He already had what they had come for, and he was safe. He could just find another asura willing to buy the Golem’s Eye and keep all the profit himself. Sticking around here any longer only meant risking death.
The norn was a bully anyway, and the asura was insulting, and the sylvari …
The sylvari. Dougal thought about it for only a second, the sound of Gyda’s hammer blows getting fainter and more infrequent. He cursed and muttered about never adventuring with people you would hate to see die.
Peering down over the edge of the hole, Dougal shouted, “I’m up here at the entrance! Let’s go!”
Suddenly the rope jerked out of Dougal’s hand as Breaker fell over on his side again. Dougal managed to grab the line again before it got away from him, but rather than allow himself to be dragged back into the lower chamber, he let the line play out through his grasp.
“Hold it, Clagg!” Dougal shouted, hoping the asura was somehow still alive at the other end of the rope. “I can pull you up. I’ve got the rope!”
“They’re shattered!” Clagg sobbed. “My Breaker’s beautiful legs. I carved them myself. They’re destroyed!”
“Forget about the golem!” Dougal said. “Cut your end of the rope free, and I’ll haul you and Killeen up!”
“Right, right,” Clagg said, blithering as if to remind himself of the details of this most basic plan. “Cut the rope and you haul me up. To safety.”
“And Killeen too!”
“She’s dead,” Clagg said. “She must be dead.”
“No, I am not!” said Killeen weakly. “I just can’t find a way out of these straps!”
“Cut her free!” Dougal said.
“No!” Clagg said, his voice rising hysterically. “No time!”
A crash came from the other side of the lower chamber, and Gyda screamed, this time in pain. Then Dougal heard her hammer start pounding again, even faster than before.
“Cut Killeen free and I’ll haul you both up!” Dougal shook his fist with the rope in it at Clagg and snarled. “Do it now or I’ll toss the rope down and let you die with Gyda!”
Clagg squeaked something inaudible, then set to work with a knife.
“Thank you,” Dougal heard Killeen say to the asura.
Gyda bellowed from the other side of the room. “By the Bear! How many times must I slay this damned thing?”
Dougal peered deeper into the gloomy hole. The norn stood near the pillar, stooped with exhaustion, her body heaving to catch a breath, her warrior’s braid shredded, sweat and blood from a hundred small wounds pouring over her tattoos and fur. The fragmented tomb guardian continued to re-form, pulling replacement parts from the walls and floor. Gyda’s eyes met Dougal’s, and for the first time Dougal saw real fear in her face: the fear of someone who had realized she had picked an unwinnable fight.
Gyda raised her hammer and pointed beyond Dougal and toward the tomb’s entrance. “Go,” she said, and turned back to the re-forming guardian, her hammer raised.
“Ready!” Clagg tugged on the line. “Haul us up now! Please ?”
Dougal backed up into the chamber leading into the crypt and set his feet against the top step. He began hauling on the rope as hard as he could, reeling it in an arm’s length at a time. Individually, the asura and the sylvari weren’t heavy,