Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [66]
As the Ebon Vanguard raced toward them, Dougal found he had drawn his sword without noticing. Alongside him the others were recovering and preparing for the assault. Riona drew her slender blade. Killeen wove her hands in an intricate pattern. Kranxx, formerly in the lead, now faded back behind the others, dropped his pack, and started rummaging around in it. Ember had been the apparent target of the musket balls, and parts of her fur were smoking from several near misses. She extended her claws with a snarl and reared back to spring at their assailants.
Yet, before anyone else could react, Gullik let out a guttural roar, his flesh becoming thick and hairy, his face extending into a fuzzy, tooth-filled muzzle. Both attackers and defenders hesitated for a moment at the sight.
Of course, Dougal realized, Gullik would be able to take the form of a totem animal, and that form would be a bear’s, just as his cousin’s was a snow leopard.
The bear-Gullik dipped both of his massive paws into the sludge swirling around his thighs, then swung them forward like giant scoops, flinging their fetid contents over his companions’ heads at the charging Vanguard. The guards howled in protest, blinded by the muck, their footing suddenly made treacherous by the sludge.
Ember leaped forward and gutted the lieutenant with a single slash of her claws. The man fell forward, gurgling blood. The charr moved past him and dove into the rear ranks of the guards rushing at them.
Riona stepped up and clashed blades with the female officer from the gate. “This is the queen’s business!” Riona shouted, her voice almost pleading. “I demand you stand down!” Instead of answering, the Vanguard warded off Riona’s initial blow and then followed it with a brutal riposte that clanged off the side of the crusader’s helmet.
One of the Vanguard slipped past Ember and tried to run Dougal through, but Dougal parried him easily. The guard’s sword seemed to slip along the oily surface of Dougal’s blade until it smacked into the steel cross-guard. Still, the way the man kept his balance and blocked Dougal’s counterblow told Dougal he was in for a real fight.
Behind him, Dougal heard Killeen finish her spell. For a moment nothing happened, and he thought that perhaps she’d panicked and failed to make the incantation work or been interrupted by a stray blow. Then he heard squeaking in the distance, coming toward them from everywhere up and down the tunnels, and moving fast.
The guards heard it, too, and those who weren’t directly engaged in the fight backed off, their swords at the ready, their eyes darting in all directions as they hunted for the source of the noise. The squeaking grew louder and higher, and the guards grew more and more anxious. One of them bellowed in frustration, his cry mixing with the rising squeaks.
The rats came scurrying from all around them, some wet and dripping with sludge, others dry as bone. Their eyes glittered red in the lights that Kranxx and the Vanguard still bore. They sounded hungry.
The guard who had screamed charged into the wave of rats, swinging his sword wildly. It clanged against the masonry rather than flesh, and then the rats swarmed over him. In an instant, they covered him from head to toe and began to tear him into tiny pieces.
While the first guard screamed in pain and terror, a pair of his fellows leaped to help him. The mass of rat flesh expanded to draw them in, and they began hollering for help too. In mere moments, the pleas stopped, and the guards collapsed under the weight of the murderous rats on top of them.
By this time Gullik had stormed into the dry tunnel. He had returned to his nornish form and now lashed out with his axe, left and right, and where it swung, men fell like saplings.
Dougal realized the guard he had battled would