Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows (41 page)

He scowled and didn’t answer.

They moved from building to building, peering through windows and checking doors for any sign of forced entry. Gamina’s slippered feet passed silently over the cobblestones, leaving Cobiah and Benedict to scurry behind like hounds in the wake of an alley cat. Once again, Cobiah blessed his childhood on the streets; if he hadn’t learned thiefcraft, it would have been incredibly difficult to keep up. “It’s not surprising that Edair’s overreacting,” Gamina murmured. “Even his father was afraid
of you. Didn’t you wonder why Baede never tried to take Lion’s Arch?”

“I assumed he didn’t care for the climate,” Cobiah joked.

“No dice.” She chuckled. “He didn’t have the guts to take on the finest navy in the world—or their commander.” Gamina glanced back at him. “Taking this city by force requires an attacker to be ruthless. You’d have to destroy the navy and slaughter the populace before they’d kneel to a ruler who’s not born and bred in the waves.”

“Which ruins the point of taking the city in the first place,” Benedict surmised. “Isn’t that right?”

Gamina nodded. “Baede respected that and tried to deal with you, hoping Lion’s Arch would return to Kryta in time. Edair doesn’t care. He’s not that patient. Remember that, Cobiah, and remember that pride is Edair’s weakness.”

“Remember?” Cobiah peered out past the edge of one of the buildings on the wharf, ensuring that the way ahead was clear. “Gamina, I’m not exactly planning to have tea with the pox-faced prince of Kryta.”

“You might not be planning it, but I can assure you,
he
is.” Suddenly Gamina dropped to a crouch and scooted behind a pile of cargo. “Look—over there.” She pointed toward the other side of the wharf. Cobiah and Benedict scrambled to either side of her and peered down through cracks between the cargo crates for several minutes, looking quizzical. Growing impatient, Gamina pushed Cobiah forward, indicating the slope that led beneath the pier. “You go that way and get their attention. I’ll come up behind them.”

Moving silently, she glided around the far corner of the cargo pile and vanished into the night. Cobiah and
Benedict shared a glance. “Uh . . . do you see a . . . ‘them’?” Cobiah asked. Benedict shrugged and shook his head. Cobiah sighed. “Me neither.”

Awkwardly, Benedict drew the longsword he had gathered from the training ground, holding the weapon as if it were a club. Cobiah frowned in concern, but there was very little he could do about it. Hopefully, Benedict was better in action than he looked standing still. Cobiah drew his cutlass and gestured for the youth to follow him down the slope. “You can’t use a sword at all, can you?” Cobiah asked. Benedict shook his head sheepishly, and Cobiah sighed. “All right. Stay close.”

As they approached, Cobiah slowly began to make out four men beneath the pier, all huddled around a rowboat hidden beneath the shadow of the farthest dock. They’d been talking in low tones, voices barely audible over the hush and swell of the ocean waves, but Cobiah saw one of them gesture quickly, pulling his fist close to his face in warning. The others instantly fell silent.

In the light of the oil fires scattered over the water of the harbor, Cobiah saw that two of the men were holding daggers. A third pulled a thick-handled mallet from his belt. Looking inquisitively at the fourth, he tapped the heavy work hammer in his hand the way a tree cutter might swing his axe. The fourth moved around the rowboat, peering in Cobiah’s direction. Cobiah reached back and gripped Benedict’s hand, making sure the boy wasn’t moving. Both groups stood in silence for a moment, and then the fourth bandit scowled. He’d seen them.

Raising his voice in the tongue of magic, the fourth bandit pulled a strange-looking dagger from his belt. The blade was twisted like an animal’s horn, and the hilt was embellished with blue stone. The man cast a quick spell, and a clawlike burst of fire shot forward from his
weapon. The talons raked Cobiah’s flesh, searing his skin—and more important, showing exactly where he was standing.

“Get them!” the saboteur elementalist demanded. “Don’t let them flee.”

“Flee?” Cobiah said, challenging them. “Hadn’t even crossed my mind.” He charged directly into the group, hoping to scatter them. One on one, Benedict might have a better chance against the Krytans . . . and it would give Gamina an opportunity to do whatever she was planning. The elementalist skittered aside, and the two dagger-wielding thieves darted in opposite directions, planning to flank Cobiah and Benedict. The scruffy-looking man with the mallet blocked Cobiah’s cutlass with the hilt of his weapon, a surprised “oomph” of effort escaping him. Cobiah smiled as his sharpened cutlass bit deep into the wood. Surprised at his opponent’s skill, the ruffian scowled.

The warrior spun the hammer, and where Cobiah’s blade was stuck in the wood, the metal of the cutlass shrieked, bent, and then shattered. “The old geezer’s all yours, boys.” The scruffy thief said mockingly, “A little bit of a breather, and he might have another solid hit left for you.”

The two dagger-wielding thugs approached Cobiah, one to either side. Benedict pressed forward, his back against Cobiah’s back, and Cobiah could feel the youth shaking. As is, they were no match for these saboteurs. “Give me your sword!” Cobiah ordered, reaching back to take it from his young friend. Benedict paused only a second before obeying.

“But, sir, what am I supposed to fight with?”

“Give me a minute. I’ll get you a dagger.” Cobiah shrugged off his coat and began to twirl it in one hand,
slapping the ground in circles as he warded off the attacker on his left side. Before the two saboteurs could formulate another plan, Cobiah swung his sword viciously at one of the dagger men. The thug ducked, lunging in beneath the reach of Cobiah’s weapon. The dagger cut through the fabric of Cobiah’s coat with a vicious swipe, but the old captain was too quick for the steel to touch his flesh. He tugged the coat aside, nearly pulling the dagger out of his opponent’s hand, and swung again. This time, he felt his sword scrape against the man’s leg. A good blow but hardly crippling.

The bandit elementalist changed his footing and chanted another spell. This time, heaviness pressed in the air around Cobiah, weighing on his shoulders with a damp, cold pressure. Recognizing the spell from his time with Verahd long ago, Cobiah reached back and thrust Benedict aside, jumping forward himself as a spike of ice coalesced above them both. It drove into the ground where the two men had been standing, showering the area around them in chunks of frozen snow.

Using the distraction as an opportunity to attack, one of the other brigands thrust in with his dagger, but this time, Cobiah swirled his coat around it, fouling the blade. Letting the coat fall over the dagger, Cobiah grabbed his assailant’s wrist through the fabric. He jerked forward and drove his other fist—still wrapped around the hilt of his borrowed sword—into the man’s face. Cobiah struck once, twice, then a third time, following up with a knee into the thug’s extended arm. There was a sharp crack, and the man fell with a howl, clutching a broken wrist. Cobiah scooped up the assailant’s dagger and tossed it to Benedict. “Better?”

The youth smiled. “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir.” He gripped the lighter weapon more assuredly than he had
the sword. Clearly, the messenger’s childhood had not been so different from Cobiah’s own.

Near the rowboat, the brigand with the mallet had been planning an attack of his own. He swung the hammer over his head to gain speed, and as his companion fell, the scruffy-looking warrior slammed it down. The earth and sand beneath the pier rumbled from the mighty force of the blow. An explosion of earth and rocks burst up in all directions, showering Cobiah and the rest with blinding sand.

Emboldened by the dagger and farther from the epicenter of the explosion, Benedict yelled a reedy battle cry and dove past Cobiah. Ignoring the others, he drove his shoulder into the belly of the caster. The man had nearly finished another spell, the tide nearby swirling upward into a geyser—but Benedict’s tackle knocked them both backward over the rowboat. The geyser popped like a bubble, drenching the rowboat, combatants and all, in salt water as Benedict and the caster fell into the rising tide. Benedict managed to stab the other man, scoring a solid hit to his shoulder with the knife; the blade snagged and tore out of Benedict’s hand as the bandit screamed. The dagger fell into the tide as Benedict grappled with his enemy, rolling and kicking in the water beneath the pier.

First an earthquake, then a downpour. Scratching at his eyes, Cobiah stumbled as he tried to regain his balance on the still-shifting sand. He could hear the other bandit cursing a few feet away. Reaching out for the dark form at the edge of his vision, Cobiah managed to grab the other man’s head, tangling his fingers into the thug’s hair. The man struck out with his knife. A white-hot flame ignited in a line along Cobiah’s rib cage. He ignored the pain long enough to jerk the thug’s head
forward, cracking a fist into the man’s nose. The thug yelped, his body going suddenly limp, and fell forward into the sand.

Benedict twisted in the sand, fighting hand-to-hand with the bandit spellcaster. Thinking quickly, Benedict kicked the other man’s dagger free, leaving both to fight purely with their hands. The elementalist quickly pulled out an off-hand focus as he clutched Benedict’s arms, his fingers sinking deep into the youth’s flesh. Benedict countered with knee-kicks to the body, and the two rolled in the shallow water. The elementalist shouted another spell. With a flash of light, his hands burst into flames. The spell was weaker than if he’d been using his dagger, and splashing water absorbed the worst of it. Benedict’s flesh seared, blisters rising on his biceps where the elementalist squeezed.

Aware that Benedict was in trouble, Cobiah pushed himself away from the two whimpering, injured bandits fallen in the sand at his feet. Intending to throw himself forward to join the fight, Cobiah raised his sword and lunged forward—but where he expected to fly to the boy’s aid, his body suddenly refused to obey. A second wave of force from the scruffy-looking bandit’s hammer knocked him back again, and Cobiah found himself stumbling, pushed aside as easily as a wave knocks away a bit of foam. He could hear his own opponent laughing, feet crunching in wet sand as the Krytan strode closer.

The man with the hammer was a problem. Worse, his blow had shaken Cobiah’s body, exacerbating the dagger wound. Cobiah put a hand to his side and drew it away covered in blood. It burned from immersion in salt water and gritty sand, and Cobiah’s breath came in short gasps. He was bleeding heavily, and being soaked in water only made the situation worse. Cobiah forced himself to stand.
Benedict was screaming, the elementalist’s fire flickering with ghostly flame up and down the youth’s arms. “I’m coming,” Cobiah managed to say—but he wasn’t entirely sure that was true.

“I didn’t recognize you at first, you know,” the scruffy bandit taunted. “I wouldn’t have expected to meet the famous Commodore Marriner under a rough-side pier.” The man spun his heavy wooden mallet in his hands, giving Cobiah a snaggletoothed grin. “You’re nothing like the king’s advisers described. They told us to be careful about you. Said that if the master of the city got involved, we’d be done for.” His laugh of disdain echoed with Benedict’s cries for help. “But here you are. Nothing more than a weak old man stumbling in the tide. Your ‘legend’ is nothing but a waste of breath.” The man with the hammer paused and eyed Cobiah up and down, taking in the bloodstained shirt, his faltering steps, and the sword hanging heavily in the commodore’s hand. “Prince Edair paid us a chest of gold to turn that fleet to ash. I bet he’ll give us ten times more if we bring back your head, Commodore.” The warrior hefted his weapon again, the heavy mallet moving ponderously in his burly grip.

Cobiah tried to raise his sword for another attack, but it was as if iron bands circled his chest, squeezing all the breath out of him. Where was Gamina? He glanced about but saw nothing in the shadows, nothing in the movement of the waves beyond the pier. As the bandit strode closer, Cobiah’s thoughts flitted to Isaye. Macha. His mother, who should have loved him—but treated him like trash. Once more, he’d trusted someone—and they’d repaid him with treachery.

Urgency spurred Cobiah forward. He had to get to Benedict before the saboteur elementalist burned the youth to death. Desperate, Cobiah chopped at the
mallet-wielding brigand. The wound made his sword arm as slow as winter molasses, and the bandit dodged easily. Cobiah tried again, but the Krytan batted his weapon aside like a feather. “Just die, Commodore,” the man said, grinning. “You’re no hero. You’re no great leader. You’re
nothing
.”

The words were like a slap in the face.
Nothing,
he could hear his mother say, over and over again.
You’re worth nothing.
Rage swelled in Cobiah’s heart. His vision blurred, turning red, and he ignored the pain to swing his sword with a far younger man’s anger. Taken by surprise, the brigand stumbled backward, his hand loosening on the heavy mallet. Cobiah’s second swing knocked it free, and the mallet tumbled to the ground. “Out of my way!” Cobiah roared. His heart was pounding. Blood flowed between the fingers of the hand pressed to his rib cage. Clenching his other hand around the hilt of the sword, Cobiah shoved past the scruffy-looking bandit and ran toward Benedict.

Raising his sword, Cobiah stabbed down at the elementalist and felt his weapon strike flesh. As the brigand screamed, Benedict raised his feet and kicked the other man in the chest, pushing him farther onto the weapon until, at last, the fire died, and the man’s body went limp. Cobiah sagged, forced to let go of his sword as Benedict rolled out from under the dead man. “Are you all right?” Cobiah managed to ask. Benedict nodded gratefully, shoving the body off him and into the ocean waves.

“Commodore!” Benedict scrambled in the waves for his lost dagger. The seared flesh of his arms was blistered and raw, but he raised a hand to point over Cobiah’s shoulder. Wide-eyed, he yelled, “Watch out!”

Cobiah looked, knowing what he’d see. He’d been forced to leave the last bandit behind in order to get to
Benedict before the messenger was burned to death. It’d been a conscious choice, and he was prepared for the consequences. Behind him, the brigand with the mallet swung his weapon in a wide swath. Cobiah heard the whisper and crackle of magical force around the weapon’s head. He had only time enough to spin around, placing himself between the injured Benedict and the brigand’s strike as the massive bludgeon swept forward.