Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows (5 page)

With that, Cobiah turned his back on Tosh and stuffed the bundle into the cubby marked with his initials. There was an echoed murmur from the other sailors when he turned away. They knew that Tosh couldn’t allow that kind of brush-off and still keep his reputation. Sailors clustered closer, like vultures hoping to feed. “Oh, you got to ruffle ’im good now, Tosh. Don’t let the greengill talk to you like that,” called an eager voice in the crowd. “You best show Dolly ’is place!”

Snarling in embarrassment, Tosh spun Cobiah around and shoved back, forcing him to stagger into one of the hammock poles. A sharp burst of white sparks filled Cobiah’s vision as his head cracked against the wood. He grabbed the pole and shook his head to clear it. All around, the rest of the sailors were gathering, cheering excitedly for a fight. Sethus tried to call them to reason, but nobody was listening. Like the dog packs in Lion’s Arch, they were hoping for a fight.

“C’mon, Dolly,” Tosh growled, eyes narrowing. “You’re nothing but rag and stuffing.”

“That doll belonged to my sister,” Cobiah snarled. “She died back in Lion’s Arch. Touch it again, and you’ll be the one who gets ripped apart, I swear it on Grenth’s knucklebones.” Before Tosh could react, Cobiah hurled himself forward, burying his shoulder in the soft part of
Tosh’s midsection. Shocked, the other youth choked. As the older boy bent in half from the blow, Cobiah straightened, bringing his fist up to crack Tosh in the jaw. Eager cheers and laughter rose from the other sailors.

“Cobiah,” Sethus pleaded as he backed away from the crowd, “I’ll go get Vost! Just hang in there.” He turned to run, and Cobiah lost sight of him.

“Vost? Bah. I’ll wipe the deck with you before Vost gets here, and no one’ll tell the tale.” Tosh wiped a bit of blood from his lip and squared off against Cobiah, this time ready for the pale boy to make a move. “You going to run away like your little friend, Dolly?”

But Cobiah had started this fight, and he was determined to end it.

Tosh cut loose with a jab as quick as a striking hawk. It caught Cobiah’s cheek, snapping his head to the side. Cobiah stumbled but recovered in a flash, double-punching Tosh’s gut again, taking advantage of his previous success. Tosh grunted in pain but didn’t fall.

With a spin, Tosh responded with a heavy kick to Cobiah’s knee. Even as he fell, Cobiah reached out and grabbed Tosh’s ponytail, jerking the other boy to the floor as well. Together, they rolled about on the floor, legs kicking and flailing as the crowd shouted encouragement. Gaining the upper hand, Cobiah rolled onto Tosh and gouged his eyes with both thumbs. Still, Tosh was stronger, and before Cobiah could get a good push, Tosh rolled him over and started punching Cobiah in the face. Two blows, and blood spilled down Cobiah’s cheek. A third, and he felt his eye start to swell. “Give up, Dolly,” Tosh taunted. “You can’t win.” All around them, sailors were encouraging them to fight harder and passing silver back and forth with eager wagers. As he mopped at his eye with the back of his hand, Tosh leaned forward to laugh in Cobiah’s face.

He could taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth, feel the skin beginning to puff up and blur his vision. Ignoring the pain, Cobiah seized his chance and leaned forward to sink his teeth into the bully’s ear. Tosh screeched and tried to pull away, but he couldn’t get his ear out of Cobiah’s grip. Raising his arms to either side, Tosh sent blow after blow into Cobiah’s rib cage. Cobiah didn’t care about the beating he was taking. He simply refused to give in.

Tosh howled, screaming and kicking, but Cobiah was relentless. Cobiah released his bite and hit him with a double strike of his fists. One of the other sailors tried to pull him back, lifting Cobiah bodily away from his foe. Cobiah pulled free and leapt back into the fray, going for the wounded ear again. “Help!” Tosh screamed. “He’s gone mad-dog crazy! Get him off me!” Tosh rolled back and forth, trying desperately to throw Cobiah. At last, Cobiah let go of his opponent’s ear and punched Tosh dead in the face. Blood spurted from Tosh’s nose as Cobiah followed up by driving a knee into his groin.

Suddenly, hands grasped Cobiah’s shoulders and jerked him away. Three brawny sailors held on to him, their faces pale. Eye swollen shut, lip split, and spitting blood out of his mouth, Cobiah twisted and nearly broke free again. “Let me go!” he snarled. “I’m not done!”

“To the Mists with you!” Tosh skittered backward across the floor in terror. Blood dripped from his broken nose as he gasped, “Keep that madman away from me!”

“Back away, you lot!” Bosun Vost shoved through the knot of sailors. He scowled in rage and put his hands on his hips. “What’s going on here?” Glaring, he took in Tosh’s hunched posture and torn cheeks as well as the rapidly growing bruise swelling on Cobiah’s jaw. “You
know the rules. No fighting aboard ship! Am I going to have to flog the both of you?”

Sethus, standing at Vost’s side, was the first to speak up. “I told you, Bosun. Tosh tripped, and, um, Cobiah tried to catch him, then they both got tangled . . .” The crowd began to scatter and duck back to their own bunks, each sailor afraid of the bosun’s wrath.

“Tripped?” Vost’s eyes darkened. “Cobiah, is this true?”

“Yes, sir.” Cobiah gulped, glancing from Sethus back to the injured Tosh.

Vost’s withering glare turned colder. “Tosh?”

It felt like the pause lasted for hours, but eventually Tosh managed to say, “It’s true.”

The bosun looked back and forth between them with a grim nod. “You ‘tripped’ and broke your nose.” Vost crossed his arms and fumed. “Fine. You two ‘trippers’ get swabbing duty tonight instead of dinner.”

“But, sir—” Sethus began, and Vost rounded on him. “You, too, for bringing me down here over nothing.” Sethus quailed and fell silent. The bosun looked between the three youths and scowled. “I’ll let it slide this time, your ‘tripping,’ but the next time I catch any of you at it—or fibbing about it!—you’ll be tripping at the end of my whip. Am I clear, you dogs?”

“Yes, sir!” all three chorused at once.

Vost grumbled and spun on one heel, pointing at Cobiah. “You and Sethus go up on deck. I want you to polish the brass up there until I can see Elona in it.

“As for you, Tosh . . .” The bosun leveled a stern glare at the other boy. “You head belowdecks to the bilge pumps. You’ll check every pump for air holes, even if you have to drown yourself doing it. With the whole ship between you, you should have plenty of space to cool down.

“Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?” Vost shouted bracingly.

It wasn’t a question. Stiffening his back, Cobiah bellowed, “Yes, sir!” with the rest.

“Now get going,” Vost growled.

Cobiah and Sethus raced upstairs as Tosh slunk toward the ladder that led to the lower hold. Nearly tripping over their feet, the two youths clambered out of the berth and hurried through the press of sailors at work on the deck. Grateful to feel warm wind on his face even if his stomach was growling, Cobiah retrieved the brass polish from a small storage hold. Sethus grabbed a small pile of rags. With an overdramatic sigh, he said, “Let’s start with the figurehead. The rest of the brass is on the forecastle, and I’d rather stay out of the bosun’s way for a while.”

The figurehead of the
Indomitable
hung at the fore of the ship just beneath the bowsprit. Masterfully formed and easily recognizable, the brass woman’s glorious figure curved against the keel of the ship as if her back were arched in flight. Six arms rose from her curving torso: two reaching up to the sky, two more spread back against the ship in mute protection, and a third and lowest pair curled down like the graceful limbs of a belly dancer enticing her audience. She was beautiful but hellaciously difficult to keep from turning green.

Once they were polishing her, Sethus whispered, “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Cobiah ran a hand through his hair, feeling the bruises where Tosh had knocked him around. “When you grow up on the streets of Lion’s Arch, you learn to fight.”

“So, you’re a thief?”

Scowling, Cobiah retorted, “I don’t steal things. I just learned how to take care of myself.”

Sethus nodded, taking that in. After a moment, he blurted out, “You didn’t have to fight Tosh. You could have walked away from the fight. We’d have gotten your old doll back sooner or later.”

“What, have Vost step in on my account?” Cobiah snorted. “That would have only made it worse. In a week? Three weeks? Everyone would be helping Tosh pick on me. I’d be scum.” He smeared polish roughly on one of the rags. “Terrible idea.”

“I guess.” Sethus paused. “Is that why you went crazy down there? You looked feral.” Sethus shook his head in amazement. “You looked like a charr. You know, big teeth, claws, four ears, fuzzy killing machine?”

“I know what a charr is, Sethus.”

“Seriously. I thought you were going to start foaming at the mouth. You were a wild thing!” He made snarling noises and sank his fingers like claws into the brass polish.

Cobiah chuckled. “I wasn’t acting like a charr. I’ve just seen plenty of bullies in my time. I know what happens if they think they’re in charge.” Despite his sore jaw, it was nice to laugh again. He wiped the brass forehead with the rag, rubbing the polish in circles. “If you ignore a bully, he just gets worse. Soon everyone else joins in, and before long, you’re in a hole you can’t get out of.

“I could beat Tosh. But I knew I couldn’t beat Tosh and his friends if they all attacked me together. A bully is one thing. A crowd . . .” His smile faded. “Anyway, I wasn’t trying to win. I was trying to scare him. I wanted to show him—and everyone else—that picking a fight with me wasn’t worth the cost of winning.”

Sethus settled down on the other side of the figurehead and wrapped his rag around one of the woman’s elegant arms. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”

“Exactly.” Cobiah nodded grimly. “It’s all in the attitude. See, if you think a bully can beat you, then he’ll
know
he can beat you. You have to make them think you’re a difficult target, too dangerous to provoke.” Frowning, he scrubbed at the brass. “If you want to stop a battle from turning into a war, you have to scare the other guy as fast and as hard as you can.”

“Who taught you that?”

Cobiah paused. “My father. He was a soldier in Kryta before he came to Lion’s Arch. He retired from duty after the war and became a sailor.”

Perhaps hearing some sadness in Cobiah’s tone, Sethus asked, “What happened to him?”

Shrugging, Cobiah answered, “He went out to sea . . . and didn’t come back.”

For a moment Sethus thought about that, rubbing the polish from the metal with the dry side of his rag. When it was bright and shining, he asked, “Cobiah? What would you have done if Tosh won?”

“Then at least it’d be over. Either way, he wouldn’t pick on me anymore.”

He studied the brass and worked to make it shine as brightly as it could, letting the conversation fall into silence.

“You’re crazy, Coby,” Sethus sighed at last, buffing the maiden’s elegant shoulder.

“Maybe so.” Cobiah grinned. “But now the bullies know it, too.”

A
   fter ten months on board, Cobiah began to realize why sailors tended to look alike. The blazing sun and fierce winds of the sea weathered his skin, tanning it to a deep brown even as the labor tightened his muscles into cordwood. The food aboard the
Indomitable
was rough fare, mostly: hot coffee in the morning with oatmeal, and salted meat, boiled potatoes, or fish in the evening. It wasn’t much, but it was more than Cobiah had gotten in his mother’s house, and he never complained.

Tosh, for the most part, kept away from him. Even after the long marks on his cheeks healed, they left thin white lines from forehead to cheek, missing the curve of his eye socket by only a hair. Cobiah hadn’t made any friends with the fight, but the toughs left him alone. More than once, he heard Tosh muttering curses while he played cards with the other men. Cobiah was never asked to join the poker game. He didn’t mind.

They’d been twice to massive Kaineng City in Cantha, each time carrying a heavy cargo of cotton and returning with a load of silk and other goods. Cobiah loved exploring the twisted labyrinth of Kaineng City’s streets and trying the strange Canthan food, but best of all was the pure freedom of being out to sea. Travel was glorious,
opening his horizons to different cultures and perspectives. He relished life aboard the ship and being part of the
Indomitable
’s crew, despite the adversity of sailing and the difficult labor. He wanted to see the world.

But he never got off the ship when they docked in Lion’s Arch.

Cobiah spent the better part of each day chatting with Sethus and the older sailors aboard the ship. If he saved part of his morning ration for them, the old-timers would share stories in exchange, and Cobiah loved their tales. They talked about heroes, like those who fought to save Kryta from the White Mantle as his grandfather had done, and about the men and women of Ascalon who struggled against the ferocious, man-eating charr. They told him about the wild plains of Kryta, the sunlit hills of Ascalon, the ghost tales of the Maguuma Jungle, and the soaring, snow-covered Shiverpeaks. But best of all, Cobiah loved when they told stories of the lost cities of ancient Orr.