Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [5]
Before Dougal could pull back his blade for another strike, though, he heard Clagg shout at him. “Stand back, you fool!”
Dougal turned in time to see Breaker’s boulder of a fist coming down at him. He threw himself to the side, leaving his sword buried in the spider’s abdomen. The golem’s stone fist narrowly missed both the thrashing spider and the sylvari but smashed Dougal’s blade to pieces.
Gyda stormed up then. She grabbed Killeen by her arms and hauled her out of the hole. The sylvari wailed in pain as the spider sank its fur-covered fangs into her back.
Swordless, Dougal snatched a knife from his belt. He wondered how much good it would do him. The spider’s fangs were longer than his blade.
Gyda dropped Killeen to the ground, then snatched the spider from the sylvari’s back with one hand. The black thing struggled in the norn’s grasp, its legs twitching helplessly in the air. Ichor flowed around the shard of Dougal’s broken blade, still stuck in the creature’s side, and hot blue fluid trickled down Gyda’s heavily tattooed arm.
With a flick of her wrist, the norn flung the beast toward Breaker and Clagg. A moment later, the golem’s heavy foot had smashed it into paste.
Clagg, from the safety of his harness, snapped, “Watch it! It has a brood in here!”
“Watch over the plant-girl,” Gyda ordered Dougal. “I will take care of this beast’s spawn.” And the norn turned back to the web-filled room, not caring if Dougal followed her orders or not.
Dougal scrambled over to Killeen to examine her wounds. Her back was covered in a warm bluish blood, most of which he hoped had come from the spider. He’d never seen a sylvari hurt before, and had no idea what might leak out of one that had been injured.
Dougal wiped the liquid off of Killeen’s shoulder with his sleeve, uncovering a pair of puncture wounds from which spilled a golden fluid that sparkled with life. Most of the mess had come from the spider, then. The holes in Killeen’s shoulder hadn’t bled much, but the skin around them had already started to swell a bright yellow. Her skin was firm, like the shell of a horse chestnut. She was cold but not clammy. Was that good or bad? Dougal didn’t even know if she could sweat.
“It hurts a bit,” Killeen said as she craned her neck around, the glow in her large eyes dimming. Then she noticed the grim look on Dougal’s face, and she blinked and rallied herself enough to ask questions.
“Do you think I’m dying? How can you tell? Is there some special way to know?” She tried to ask more, but a coughing fit stopped her. Her skin was lightening to a pale yellow around the wound and spreading to the rest of her body.
While Dougal turned her over and held her, the norn and the golem began smashing a pack of spider-shaped shadows into a blue-black paste. Dougal hunkered down over the weakened sylvari to protect her from the flying bits of dried bone and arachnid with his body. He looked down at her face, golden and pale.
Dougal realized he had violated his first rule. He was going to feel horrible if she died.
He glanced back to see Gyda breathing hard and holding her hammer in a two-handed grip. Splats of spider corpses formed a ring around her. Clagg’s golem had ground out a mushy blue mixture beneath its stone feet.
Once the slaughter ended, Dougal saw that the sylvari had passed out, and he beckoned the others to her side.
“Raven’s wings,” Gyda said, barely breathing hard from all the exertion. “She’s getting paler than you, little man.”
“It’s the poison,” Dougal said. “It’s working fast.”
Clagg climbed down from the harness on Breaker’s front to get a better look at the sylvari. “I estimate she has only a few minutes remaining before the venom takes her. Do either of you have a potion, poultice, or spell that could aid her?”
Gyda shrugged. Dougal grimaced and said, “Do I look like an alchemist to you?”
“Given your background,” Clagg said, “I thought you might have stolen one somewhere. No matter: I have something that should do the trick right