Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [4]
Now Gyda laughed. “He means to say, ‘Thank you, sylvari, for doing my job.’ ”
Killeen’s cheeks blushed a deeper green. “My apologies,” she said to Dougal. “I did not mean to upstage you. I did remove the trap without hurting anyone.”
Dougal grimaced. He didn’t doubt that her apology was heartfelt, but that made it feel even worse. He said, perhaps not as kindly as he could, “You could have given us more fair warning, or time to back out of the explosion. As it was, you could have brought the ceiling down on top of us.”
“I see,” Killeen said, thoughtful for a moment. “I did not intend to endanger our quest.”
“Of course not,” Dougal said, feeling bad for upbraiding her. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but enjoy her sincerity.
“Perhaps it’s the wonder of this place,” the sylvari said, raising her chin once again. “It’s fascinating. To my people, death is an integral part of life. We revere it wholly, even the darkest parts of it. But we don’t quite understand it—yet.” She gazed around the chamber, her eyes wide with wonder. “And even so, we would never build a monument like this to it.”
“It is not a monument to the dead but rather a testament to those who lived,” Dougal said gently. He felt his irritation ebbing away—toward her, at least. “Let’s go.” Then, raising his voice to the others: “Let’s be careful moving forward. We should see more traps like this.”
“You are such an old woman, human,” Gyda snorted. “My great-granddame Ulrica would not hesitate as much as you do, and she’s been dead for seven years.” She kicked aside a pile of bones and held aloft a torch. “You worry too much. What’s life without danger?”
“Longer,” Dougal said.
He followed the norn as she strode through the exploded room and into the chambers beyond. He’d worked with other norn before. They were larger than life in many ways, but norn bullies were just like everyone else’s. Gyda’s bluster was meant to cover some other deficiency. Dougal didn’t mention the norn’s own reluctance to enter the trapped room, despite her bragging.
“Bah. Such a life only seems longer, like a tasteless meal,” concluded Gyda. As Dougal followed her, he noticed that the air had grown slightly cooler. Once they were all inside the next chamber, both he and the norn held their torches aloft. The light found something thick and gray hanging among the bones at the apex of the room’s high-arched ceiling.
Dougal held up a hand to shade his eyes against the torch and peered at the substance. At first he thought it hanging moss, but suddenly it was clear what it was.
Webbing.
Dougal cursed. He shouted out a warning, but Killeen’s high-pitched scream behind him cut him off. He spun about just in time to see the sylvari disappear into a hole in the ground.
In an instant Dougal knew what had happened. Killeen’s assailant had waited as the larger forms of Dougal and the norn had passed over its concealed hiding place, and sprung its trap on the lighter footfalls of the sylvari. And in that moment Killeen was gone, pulled into a hollowed-out space beneath the ancient flagstones, a trapdoor made of webs and bones slamming down after her, blending once more into the bone-littered floor.
Gyda spun around, too, and scanned the room for any sign of Killeen behind her. “The necromancer! Where is she ?”
“Down there!” Clagg shouted, pointing at the trapdoor. “Spider!”
Dougal raced toward the trapdoor, dropping his torch and drawing his sword as he went. He smashed at the disguised covering with his blade, and the trapdoor shattered as if he’d struck a dinner plate.
Killeen screamed again as she popped back up out of the hole, like a swimmer breaching the surface. She flung out her hands and scrabbled for a handhold among the bones before her, but they pulled away loose in her hands.
A black-haired spider the size of a small wolf appeared on the sylvari’s shoulders and reared back to strike her on the neck. Dougal made a desperate stab at it. His blade sliced through one of the creature’s legs and lodged itself in its side.