Guild Wars_ Ghosts of Ascalon - Matt Forbeck [88]
Dougal grasped the hilt and pulled, and the bush screeched as its branches and flowers shattered from the force. Then he spun around to see that the crystalline creature had decided to ignore him for a moment. It had returned to hunting Killeen instead.
The sylvari was at the crater’s rim now, desperately trying to finish another spell. This time the target of her incantation was Gullik. The battered norn had finally managed to crawl out of the purple-powdered crater. He bled from countless wounds as he staggered to his feet, and Dougal was sure he saw bone sticking through his skin in at least three different places, but the norn would not let that stop him.
Killeen’s spell enveloped Gullik in a bright red nimbus, although it was hard to tell if the color came from the magic or the blood dripping from the norn’s skin. As the final words of the spell left the sylvari’s lips, she let her concentration lapse and glanced up to see the minion swinging its injured arm in a backhanded slap, level with the twisted earth. The arm was attached to the rest of its body by a fraction of its width, and the creature snapped it like a whip.
Gullik fell backward, but Killeen was not so fortunate. The back of the creature’s fist smacked into Killeen with a sickening crunch, and she went sailing off to the north, with most of the minion’s arm following the same trajectory. Dougal watched them both arc through the air as if they’d been loosed from a catapult. He gasped in horror as the boulder-sized arm fragment smashed into the sylvari as she landed on the ground.
Furious, Dougal turned back, raised his sword over his head, and charged at the dragon’s minion. The creature moved more slowly, now that it was missing two limbs, but it was still a deadly threat. Dougal slashed at the thing’s head, and his sword cut a long line across its face, just below the eyes.
The minion brought up its one good arm and smashed it down at Dougal. Watching the arm coming down at him, Dougal thought he’d finally made his last mistake, but the blow missed him by inches. As he wondered why, he saw that Gullik had gotten close enough to chop the back of the creature’s good leg with his axe.
The glow that had surrounded Gullik now expanded to envelop the minion’s leg at the point where the norn had damaged it. Dougal saw one of the bones poking out of Gullik’s lower leg pull itself back into him and the skin heal over the wound.
Dougal understood then what Killeen had done. The spell she’d cast on Gullik allowed him to steal life force from the minion and take it for his own. Every time the warrior hit the creature, the spell drained its life force and gave it to the norn instead.
Gullik’s blow had gotten the minion’s attention, and it tried to reach back with its good arm to swat the norn, but missed. Seeing his chance, Dougal ran forward and cut at the creature again with his sword. The minion reared back in silent pain: the mouth that Dougal had cut into it sagged open now. Apparently confused, it turned back toward the human.
Then its left eye exploded.
Dougal cast a quick glance to the right and saw smoke curling from Ember’s pistol even as she dropped the gun and drew her sword. Riona was already closing the distance between them and the beast, and Kranxx had his lightning rod out. The last was a mistake, as the lightning homed in on it and smashed the ground around their feet, staggering all three of them.
Help was coming, but it was still critical moments before it would reach them—moments when the creature could take out its frustrations on Dougal. Dougal backpedaled furiously across the broken ground, while Gullik leaped up on the creature’s back and brought his axe down on it.
The blow made the creature shudder from one end of its body to the other, but Gullik found some way to hold on. With the minion’s energy surging into him again, he pulled