Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows (48 page)

“You were right.” She shrugged. “I was betraying Lion’s Arch. I turned your notes over to Kryta, and Baede might have used that information to attack the city. I had to take that risk.” Isaye looked up, temper sparking in her eyes again. “Anyway, I wasn’t exactly eager to explain myself to someone who called me a grog-snarfing murellow.” Cobiah heard Bronn snicker from the floor of
his cell, the sound quickly cut off by Grymm’s elbow through the bars into his brother’s ribs.

With an impatient tap of her heel against the wooden floor, Livia broke in. “I hope I’m not interrupting this touching scene, but there’s still the matter of your release to consider.” All eyes turned toward the exemplar again. Livia crossed the hold and reached to take a key ring from its hook on the wall, sliding her fingers lightly against the cold iron in contemplation.

Suddenly, a bell began to ring out on the upper decks, its strident clatter echoing even this deep into the hold. The
Balthazar’s Trident
began to shift, and Cobiah could hear the crew rushing to unfurl the sails and man the rudder, shouting as heavy boots thumped on the boards over their heads. “What’s going on?” Cobiah gripped the bars of his cell more tightly. The norn, quick to respond to the sounds of battle, rose to their feet with grim frowns.

“It’s begun.” Livia spoke more quickly now. She looked up toward the sound of storming boots. “One hour ago, our spotter on the crow’s nest noted a fleet of red-masted ships approaching from the south.”

“Dwayna’s mercy,” Cobiah breathed, listening to the shouts and thuds above. “The Orrians are taking advantage of the blockade. The Dead Ships are coming.” The others fell into silence as the chill of Cobiah’s words struck them all.

Grimly, Livia stalked toward the iron bars, the keys in her hand jingling softly. “King Baede’s orders were that Lion’s Arch must be kept sacrosanct so that the combined might of all the races can gather under one flag to fight against Tyria’s greatest enemy: Orr.” As she unlocked each cell, she continued. “Edair does not have the knowledge to fight them off, Commodore. You do.

“Go to the
Nomad
and lead our defense. You must find
some way to fight them off, or Lion’s Arch—and Kryta—will fall to the forces of Orr.”

“I’m not leaving without my son!” Isaye pushed past Livia as soon as her cell door was open. The exemplar grabbed her arm, jerking the dark-haired woman back with an iron grip.

“Yes, you are.” The exemplar’s tone brooked no argument. Seeing the fire in Isaye’s eyes, Livia continued more gently. “The
Trident
will be the most protected vessel in our armada. Prince Edair is no hero. He will not be at the forefront of the battle.”

“He’s a coward, you mean,” Isaye snapped.

Livia narrowed her eyes, choosing to ignore the insult. “Your son will be fine. If the city falls, he will return to Divinity’s Reach with us, and I will personally ensure his safety. But if you are ever to see him again, we must trust one another.” Livia let go of Isaye’s arm with a narrow smile. “Are we agreed?”

Isaye bit her lip and managed a nod of agreement.

Livia’s strange, pale eyes scanned Cobiah and the rest. “Kryta has a fleet, but no commanders with knowledge of how to defeat this threat. You are a commander with no fleet at your disposal.” Despite the bells clanging and the shouts and curses of the
Balthazar’s Trident
’s crew, the exemplar of the Shining Blade maintained her calculating composure. “You must do what you do best, Commodore. Bridge the divide.”

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Cobiah nodded. “I don’t see that we have much of a choice.”

Livia looked over her shoulder at him, the stripe in her scarlet hair falling around her face. “Precisely so, Commodore.” The exemplar turned on her high heel and strode toward the stairway. “Make your way toward the lifeboats. The
Nomad
is not far. You’ll have to avoid
the Seraph, but if you can make it to the lifeboat, you should be able to reach your ship. We’ll speak again once the Orrian fleet has been defeated. Otherwise”—Livia crossed the room and ascended the stairs, heading for the upper decks—“I suppose I’ll see you in the Mists.”

T
he small group made their way through the ship, ducking from room to room, hiding behind swaying hammocks and piles of cargo. It was fairly easy to avoid the Seraph, who were all rushing to the gun ports and the upper decks to defend the ship. The noble passengers fled through hallways, some screaming, others trying to take command of the situation—mostly by ordering everyone else around. Cobiah ignored them.

Tenzin reverted to his military training, bluffing the few soldiers who crossed their path. The
Balthazar’s Trident
was as fat on the inside as she’d seemed from without, with layers of labyrinthine passages that led to opulent chambers, private dining areas, and at last, a balcony. Bronn looked up, pointing at a lifeboat that hung some distance above them. “If we could cut that down, we’d have our way back to the
Nomad.
” The norn’s words met silence. “No?”

The others weren’t listening. They were looking out across the ocean, where the armada of Orr was under full sail. Though still some distance away, Cobiah could tell it was a massive fleet—larger than he’d ever seen arrayed against Lion’s Arch in the past. The Orrian ships had blackened hulls dripping with broken coral and clinging
barnacles, the wood broken and rotting where the sea had taken her due. Some rose from the waves even as he watched, black sails unfurling with the wind as they broke the plane of seawater. At their fore sailed three mighty ships. Two were xebecs, ships of ancient Orr, with scarlet silk hung in long triangles and lateen sails upon their tilted masts. These were far larger than the clipper, the
Harbinger
, that Cobiah had seen in the Fire Island straits so long ago. These two were warships, warded with magic so foul that Cobiah could see the buzz of lightning and the rise of viscous steam wafting from their hulls.

The third vessel, the one leading them all, was the
Indomitable.

At Cobiah’s side, Tenzin murmured, “My father told me of the day he fought the Orrians at your side, when the
Pride
captured the
Salma’s Grace
—and then turned to fight the true enemy. He described it to me in great detail. Even though he’d fought waves of their ships defending Lion’s Arch, he told me that the first time you see them—the first time you realize that ‘Dead Ship’ is more than a fanciful name—you’re never the same.” The Krytan had gone pale, his eyes wide and staring at the dark vision on the horizon.

“Don’t worry.” Cobiah gulped, trying to calm himself even as his knuckles turned white on the balcony rail. “You never get used to it.” The two men shared a terse smile.

Creatures with wings of sea-foam and spittle glided above them, distant voices singing maddened, ancient songs. The stink of fetid flesh rolled in on the wind, striking Cobiah’s nostrils with a fearful stench.

In the distance, a swell of magic rolled up like a tide before the two Orrian galleys. Even from here, Cobiah could see dead men in articulated armor swarming their
decks. Sixty cannons glowed like demonic eyes, thirty to a side, rolling out thunder and balled lightning from the snarling mouths of their guns. “What are those?” Tenzin pointed, squinting to see them more clearly through the cannon smoke.

“They’re Orrian vessels called xebecs. Like our ships of the line, but instead of cannons, they rely heavily on ancient magic. I’ve fought one before, about half the size of one of those.”

“And you defeated it?” the Krytan asked hopefully.

“I defeated
one
. Half as big,” Cobiah repeated. “And it nearly took us without a scratch on its hull.” He shook his head wearily, watching the massive red-sailed ships cresting the waves amid the Orrian armada. “I can’t imagine defeating two of them that size. Their enchanted guns alone . . .”

As if speaking of them had triggered the weapons, one of the xebecs fired a broadside at a nearby Krytan brigantine. Green lightning flickered and danced over the water, floating neither high nor low, but rushing forward in a straight line. Like relentless motes of pollen, they raced toward their target, exploding huge sections of its wooden hull from upper deck down to the waterline. From the crackling explosions, great arcs and tentacles of lightning burst outward to cascade over the deck of the ship. Cobiah could see figures leap from the deck of the xebec to the brigantine, dark shadows launching themselves onto screaming Krytan sailors. Weapons swung and pistols cracked as howls erupted from the combat. Cobiah could imagine what was happening to those sailors. Flesh melting from electric assaults, souls shriveling. Just like the sailors aboard his ship. Like Tosh, and Vost, and Sethus . . .

Isaye grabbed Cobiah’s arm and twisted him to face
her. “I know what you’re thinking. You think it every time the
Indomitable
is part of an attack. Don’t look, Cobiah. Those things aren’t your friends.”

He stared at her, trying to pull his thoughts away, but all he could see was death. A death he’d escaped, a fate that had taken his friends and turned them into monsters. “They were,” he whispered.

“You aren’t responsible for their deaths, Cobiah,” Isaye said, her hands bracing his shoulders. “Don’t think about the dead. Concentrate on the living. We need you.”

“I won’t give up if you don’t.” He blurted the words without thinking, and his face reddened with the admission. “I—”

“Deal,” she said immediately, and smiled.

Despite everything, so did he.

“Heeee-
yaaaaah
!” Bronn and Grymm had climbed up onto the rails of the balcony, untying the boat above from its moorings. As the little boat fell, they pushed it out, away from the
Balthazar’s Trident
, fighting with gravity and balance to make sure it didn’t crash against the balcony, get stuck on a porthole, or crack its keel falling into the water. Unfortunately, in the tumult, Bronn slipped off the balcony, arms spinning over the railing. He tumbled, howling all the way down into the waves.

When he came up again, the mustached norn threw his hand over the rowboat’s side and waved. The norn’s smile faded as he cast a look back at the two doomed ships. “The
Nomad
’s waiting. Come, let us away!”

—

The small craft made good time, plowing through rising waves in the gray of a cloud-covered morning. When they reached the
Nomad II
, Isaye’s crew was rushing about in a furor, loading the cannons and readying her wide sails.
Her bosun stood at the gunwale, a thin, reedy woman whom Isaye greeted as Rahli. She had neither Verahd’s creepy style nor Henst’s burly sense of threat but carried herself with the chilly, straightforward efficiency of a schoolmarm.

“Captain!” Rahli grasped Isaye’s hand and helped her up onto the deck. “We received a message from the Shining Blade to expect you. I’ve never known them to lie, but I have to say, I didn’t believe it until I saw the rowboat approaching.” Bronn boosted Cobiah up, helping him scramble aboard the
Nomad II
. Tenzin followed, and after him, the two norn climbed up as easily as if they were scaling cliffs in the Shiverpeak Mountains. “Even so, Prince Edair left several of his guard aboard the ship to ‘watch’ us. We ‘watched’ them to unconsciousness with belaying pins and detained them in the hold. I hope that’s acceptable.”

“I’d have thrown them over the side, armor and all,” Isaye growled. She paused to sigh and rubbed her eyes with a shaking hand. “No, I wouldn’t have. But I’d have wanted to. That’s fine, Rahli. Be sure our sailors are armed, ready the sails, and await my command.”

Rahli hurried off to carry out her orders. Isaye turned to Cobiah as a sailor brought him a sword. “What do we do?”

The Krytan fleet had engaged the Orrian armada but fought in scattered clumps. Here and there, a captain had enough hold over his crew to keep them fighting, but other ships broke the line, fleeing, the rotted ships of Orr at their heels.

“Sail straight for the Orrian line.” Cobiah drew the sword. “We’ve got to get their attention.”

“Who?” Isaye’s eyebrows shot up. “The Krytans or the Orrians?”

“Both. We need the Orrians to concentrate their fire
on the
Nomad
, and we need the Krytans to see that we can withstand it. If the Krytans get their courage back and start to follow our tactic of assault, we can still turn the tide.”

“What’s our tactic?” Tenzin had grabbed a long-barreled rifle, packing it with gunpowder and shot as he listened to Cobiah’s plan.

“Draw their attention and pull them into the city’s harbor.”

“Toward Lion’s Arch?” Grymm looked concerned.

“Toward Claw Island,” Cobiah clarified. “Toward the guns and the fortifications of the city. Even if the Krytans can’t fight worth a damn, the fort can still hold its own.”

Isaye considered. “There are only two flaws in this plan. One, the city guns weren’t built to hold off a fleet by themselves. They can’t load fast enough, and if the Dead Ships storm the city, they’ll get within firing range and be able to blow out the cliffs. That’ll be the end of the gunnery emplacements.