Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows (36 page)

“If you leave, Grimjaw sets off the bomb, and we all die anyway. That is, if I’m understanding all this madness.” Old Captain Moran pushed his chair away from the table, rolling to his feet with the sway of a practiced sailor. He drew his mace and tamped the heavy spiked ball rhythmically into his hand. “The hell if I’ll just sit on my thumb and go quietly.”

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Cobiah growled, his cutlass already in his hand.

Nodobe rose as well, and Hedda and Tarb, the first cracking her knuckles and the second reaching for the hilt of his heavy war hammer. With a smile of grudging admiration, Nodobe said, “For once I am forced to agree with my associate Captain Marriner.”

Henst snarled, “Then it would appear we’re at an impasse.”

“Not on my account.” Before Henst could react, Isaye thrust her elbow into his rib cage and grabbed for the
sword in his left hand. Henst staggered, relinquishing the weapon, but when he snapped back, he was twice as angry. He shoved Isaye, knocking her newly seized sword aside, and cracked his fist viciously against her jaw.

Grimjaw and Krokar paused, exchanged a swift look, and ran.

“Get them!” Hedda yelled, lunging over the captains’ table. “Don’t let the charr escape!” Several of the others raced forward, joining in the fight.

Cobiah spun Macha around and shoved her toward Moran. “Osh!” he yelled to his old friend. “Tie her up—we’ll deal with her after this is handled.”

Moran quickly stripped a long sash from his waist. Ignoring the asura’s protests, he bodily lifted Macha and placed her in a chair, twining the sash through the heavy wooden arms and around her wrists. With a seaman’s quick knots, he secured the rope, locking her inside the chair. “What if the bomb goes off?” Macha wailed.

“Then we’re all done for,” he retorted gruffly. “So you better stop complaining and start praying.” With that, he turned his back on her and stormed across the room toward the fight.

“Asura don’t pray!” Macha screamed after him, jolting about in her chair. The old gray captain ignored her and kept walking. “Let me go! You hear me? Moran? Moran, don’t walk away from me! There’s a bomb, didn’t you hear? Let . . . me . . . go!”

T
he brawl in the pavilion quickly spiraled out of control. At Grimjaw’s shout, his warband from the
Brutality
poured in the front door, weapons at the ready. Tarb, Hedda, and Moran charged the warband and blocked Grimjaw’s path out the door, preventing his escape. Isaye and Henst faced one another in battle, their swords flashing back and forth as each tried to find a hole in the other’s guard. Nodobe stayed well back near the table, reaching for the dagger in his belt. He chanted grim words of magic, and a sickly light began to coalesce around his fingers. Still, the captains were outclassed—even with their seconds, they were fighting against ten battle-hardened charr.

Yomm huddled under the edge of the captains’ table, pulling his glittering golden robe close about him. “I thought you said you could fight!” Cobiah mocked him, charging toward the battle.

“I
can
fight!” the shopkeep whimpered. “But it’s madness out there!”

Krokar, Grimjaw’s second, bore down on old Captain Moran with a vicious-looking hooked knife. Moran blocked the blow, cracking his forearm against the charr’s wrist midthrust. The captain was not all he had been in
his youth, and the blow did not make the charr drop the knife. Instead, it slashed through Moran’s guard, sinking deeply into the old man’s shoulder. With a yelp of pain, Moran pulled out the knife and then resheathed it in Krokar’s chest.

To the side, Captain Hedda took on three charr at once. She’d picked up a heavy oak bench, her arms rippling with massive strength beneath the softness of her chubby body. When all three charged her, Hedda set her feet and held the bench crosswise in front of her chest, setting her entire weight against it. Even with all three charr pushing as hard as they could, the buxom norn woman walked forward step by step, shoving them back with each stride. When she reached the edge of the pavilion, Hedda gave a roar and slammed the bench back even farther, pinning all three squirming soldiers against the wall.

Nodobe’s hex left his hand in a blaze of sickening greenish light as he finished the spell. It swirled through the air, leaving a trail of smoky ash in its wake, and then cascaded toward the captain of the charr. When it reached them, it exploded into a buzzing mass of insects, biting and digging into Grimjaw’s skin and expanding to encompass those nearby. Immediately, all three charr started howling in pain, scratching at their skin. They scratched so hard that their claws tore away hunks of fur. “Necromancy?” one of the charr roared toward Nodobe. “You disreputable human
scum
!”

Fighting the urge to continue tearing at his itching skin, Grimjaw raised his pistol and fired toward Nodobe, but the shot went wild. The ball of iron careened toward Tarb and caught the asura warrior in the ribs. Tarb gasped but didn’t falter, swinging his war hammer like a striking hawk. The heavy iron of the weapon’s head
cracked solidly into Grimjaw’s knees. The charr howled in pain, staggering, but fired the pistol again. The second shot hit Tarb’s forearm, and within moments, the asura’s sleeve was covered in blood.

Cobiah slashed at Grimjaw’s pistol, trying to cut off the arm that held it. Grimjaw blocked the strike using the dagger in his other hand, then raised the same fist to punch Cobiah in the jaw. Spinning, he kicked Tarb in the belly with the same motion. The charr’s boot struck the asura’s hip and knocked Tarb sprawling. The asura climbed back to his feet slowly, never losing his grip on the war hammer. While he was recovering his balance, Cobiah stepped in to deflect Grimjaw’s next blow. Cobiah bullied the charr backward, away from Tarb, keeping Grimjaw’s weapons engaged and his line of fire to the asura blocked.

Nearer to the door, Isaye and Henst continued their combat. Isaye’s leg was bleeding from one of Henst’s attacks, pale skin and a red wound showing through a long cut in her breeches. Henst taunted her with each exchange of blows, drawing Isaye ever closer to the pavilion door. Cobiah understood why. With the bomb still somewhere inside the building, Henst was trying to escape so that he could set it off himself, leaving the rest to die. Although she was good with a sword, Isaye was not a match for Henst. She was surviving on sheer anger and dexterity, but eventually her luck would run out, and Henst’s skill would determine the victor.

Cobiah pushed away his instinct to leap to her defense and tried to focus on Grimjaw. He ducked as the charr ferociously lashed out with his dagger, trying to force Cobiah away. Tarb, still behind Cobiah, swung over Cobiah’s back and slammed his war hammer into Grimjaw’s elbow. While the charr captain was shouting and flapping his arm in distress, Cobiah seized
his chance. He grabbed the charr’s massive horn and wrenched Grimjaw’s head to the side. When Grimjaw stumbled, Cobiah kneed him in the stomach, but the charr’s return punch knocked away Cobiah’s sword. The weapon clattered to the ground at their feet, but Cobiah couldn’t afford to let go of Grimjaw’s horn, not with a pistol still waving in his enemy’s hand. Rather than pick up the sword, risking a gunshot wound, Cobiah bent over and grabbed one of Grimjaw’s four ears in his mouth. He bit down viciously.

Grimjaw howled in pain. “Marriner!” he shrieked. “You don’t fight fair!”

“I fight like a charr!” Cobiah retorted through clamped teeth.

While the charr’s attention was diverted, Tarb swung his war hammer behind his body. He twisted forward and swung the hammer in an underhand arc, first down and then up—straight between the charr captain’s legs. Grimjaw’s shriek transformed into a guttural, choking sound. His pistol fell from numb fingers, and his legs clamped together. He fell to his knees, and Cobiah scooped up his fallen sword and cracked Grimjaw across the back of the neck with the hilt. With a whimper, Grimjaw crumpled to the ground.

“The concept of ‘fair’ relies on an inaccurate understanding of physics,” Tarb sniffed. “And I fight like an asura, thank you very much.”

“Marriner!” The voice was shaky, but it was clearly Moran. Cobiah spun and saw two of Grimjaw’s warband facing the old captain. Moran had raised a guardian shield of blue magic, but the energy was flickering and fading as the charr pounded on it with their weapons. Losing its cohesion, Moran’s shield finally crumpled and dissolved.

“No!” Cobiah screamed, starting toward them, but he was too far away. One of the charr thrust his sword through the last shreds of Osh Moran’s magic, spearing the gray-haired captain with the full length of his blade. The other slashed at Moran, intending to cut off the human’s head before help could arrive—but before the blow could land, Tarb’s assistant, Gamina, chucked a flowerpot from the far side of the room. Her aim was true, and her arm was good. The pot caught that charr dead in the muzzle, knocking him unconscious to the ground. Gamina lifted another pot to her shoulder, a solemn, grim look on her face, and Tarb shot her an approving smile.

Just then Cobiah reached them. He leapt onto the still-standing charr, enraged and slashing wildly with his cutlass. The soldier fell back from Cobiah’s onslaught, surprised by the attack. Cobiah knocked him back farther and swept his cutlass twice, ending the charr’s life in a quick instant.

Dropping his sword to the ground, Cobiah knelt next to the old captain. “Moran . . .” Cobiah’s voice broke with sorrow. It was too late to help him. The old captain’s eyes were already fixed in death.

Swords rang as they clashed together, Isaye still pressing Henst to his utmost. Her first mate was falling back now, struggling to keep up with her last wild blows, and Isaye knew her time was running out. She used every dirty trick in the book to gain an advantage. First she toppled a chair, kicking it at him; then she spun low and slashed at his ankles, forcing Henst to defy gravity if he wanted to keep his feet attached to his legs. For his part, the black-haired man fought determinedly, refusing to admit defeat even when Isaye’s sword cut a deep gash across his chest and arm.

Isaye tried for another, hoping to spear him with her sword. Henst dodged to the side, spinning out of the way of her blade, and caught her shoulder with his hand. He jerked her off balance, his weapon hurtling through the air to cut her open in a single slash. Isaye saw the danger and pulled her weapon down to block it, ending up inches from Henst with the two swords crossed between their bodies. They paused there, steel on steel, locked in a battle of will and strength.

With a shout of anger, Isaye drove the heel of her foot into Henst’s instep and shoved with all her might. It may have been that he was growing weary or that Macha’s similar move in the alley outside the pavilion had already injured that particular foot, but Henst staggered, suddenly overbalanced. His arms pinned by the weapons, Henst toppled, his sword slipping away from Isaye’s. With a sickening crunch, he landed amid the broken chairs and pottery, scrambling to find his footing in the mess. Isaye raised the sword in her hands, ready to finish Henst while he was off balance, but her surety flickered, and her blade wavered in the air above his chest. He was her first mate, after all.

Nodobe, on the other hand, was in no way conflicted. Chanting, the Elonian captain extended his hand, and a sickly green miasma rose from his fingers like steam on a summer day. The smoke whispered from Nodobe’s fingers and clung to Henst’s fallen form, slipping around the Ascalonian’s arms and legs, creeping into his nose, ears, and mouth as he screamed. Henst thrashed as the spell lifted him from the stone floor of the pavilion, and gurgled as his throat closed. Isaye stepped back and lowered her sword, horrified, as Henst’s skin paled and his flesh rotted from the inside out. Retching and clawing at the air, Henst writhed back and forth, trying to rid himself of
the awful sickness, but his body only grew more withered and more desiccated with each passing second.

Moments later, the corpse fell to the ground. It was shriveled and dried to the core.

Revolted, Cobiah turned away. As the others lowered their weapons and accepted the surrender of the rest of Grimjaw’s warband, he walked back to the table and placed his hand on the arched back of Macha’s chair. She sat with her head bowed, staring down at her bound hands. “I’m sorry it came to this, Macha. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you have a fair trial. No one is going to forget that you helped us today.”

Quietly, the asura whispered, “I’m sorry, too, Cobiah. I just wanted you, and the
Pride
, and all the wonderful adventures we used to have. Every day, this damn city eats more and more of your soul. I can’t be like that, Cobiah. I need to go on wandering. Inventing. Solving problems. All I do is sit around on an empty ship and think about how things should have been. I can’t do that anymore. Not even for you.”

“You’ve always been welcome by my side, Macha. You could have come into the city and helped . . .” Cobiah suddenly noticed that the asura was sitting completely still. Her lips weren’t even moving. “Macha?” He reached out to touch her. As his fingers passed through the asura’s shoulder, the entire illusion gave way in a delicate wash of smoke and twilight, revealing beneath it only Moran’s sash tangled on the seat of the chair. “Macha!”