Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows (14 page)

The only way to stop the killing was to end the fight as quickly as possible.

Cobiah hurdled a hatch to reach the brigantine’s quarterdeck, dodging through two shouting sailors as he broke into a run. The deck was slippery with blood and salt
water, but he did have one advantage—for the most part, the pirates of the
Disenmaedel
ignored anything furless.

On the quarterdeck, four burly sailors manned the bombard. One hefted a pair of burlap gunpowder sacks into the barrel, and two more were working to lift a massive iron cannonball. The fourth stood at the top of the stairs to the deck, a loaded pistol in each hand, two more stuffed through his belt, and a cutlass in a sheath at his side. Right now, the armed thug was watching the strife with a patient, ready eye, weighting the pistols in his hands. His forehead wrinkled in a frown as he watched Cobiah approach. Clearly, he couldn’t place the youth among the crew.

Using that to his advantage, Cobiah pretended to stumble on his way up the last few stairs. “Sir!” he said. “The cap’n says . . .” Then, at the last moment, instead of straightening, Cobiah charged forward and buried his shoulder in the thug’s midsection. To Cobiah’s surprise, the big man didn’t go down. Although Cobiah’s shoulder hit him solidly, eliciting a meager grunt, the man stood his ground at the top of the stairs as if he were a brick wall. Cobiah looked up over his shoulder at the immense man’s broad, pielike face and managed a halfhearted smile.

The pistol in the sailor’s right hand slammed down onto Cobiah’s back with terrific force, missing his temple by inches. A second motion, and the handle of the other pistol crashed into his collarbone with enough force to knock Cobiah to his knees. As Cobiah lay there, his head spinning, the big thug raised his pistols and cocked the hammers back in slow motion. Staring down twin columns of doom, Cobiah tried to murmur a prayer to the god of death. He couldn’t finish it. Instead, he whispered his sister’s name.

The roar that followed wasn’t one of flame and gunpowder, or the crashing impact of iron ball against bone. Instead, something fuzzy smacked Cobiah’s cheek—a tail?—as a large rust-colored mountain of muscle tore up the stairs and launched itself at the sailor.

“Sykox?” Cobiah said, marveling.

One of the thug’s guns went off as Sykox plowed into him. An iron ball whizzed past, sinking deep into the oak deck a few inches from Cobiah’s feet. Unlike the slender Cobiah, Sykox had more than twice the mass of the thug, and the two toppled and rolled onto the deck like a cat with a ball of yarn. “Get the others, Coby!” Sykox roared. “Stop them before they point that thrice-burned thing at our ship!”

Startled, Cobiah pushed himself to his feet, looking past the brawlers. The other sailors on the quarterdeck were rushing about in a panic, trying to get the gun readied. They shoved a watermelon-sized cannonball into the gun’s barrel, and one tamped it down with a long, padded stick while another unscrewed the cover of the vent tube and frantically shoved a friction primer down into the hole. One tug on the lanyard sticking out of the thin hole in the breech of the cannon, and the heavy gun would fire.

As Cobiah watched, the third man drew a cutlass from his belt and strode murderously toward him. Still holding the belaying pin, Cobiah stepped forward to fight. The
Disenmaedel
’s sailor took the first swing. His blade swished forward and Cobiah dodged nimbly. With a shrug of his shoulders, the youth returned the favor, swinging the belaying pin widely in the hopes of ending the fight in a single shot. The sailor ducked easily and grinned, revealing four gold teeth. With a snatch of his free hand, he gripped Cobiah’s wrist as it passed, twisting
viciously. Pain wracked Cobiah’s arm as the belaying pin slid through numb fingers. When it struck the deck, the sailor kicked it away, laughing at Cobiah’s grimace of pain.

Cobiah tried a shallow kick at his enemy’s leg, but the other man dodged it, keeping hold of Cobiah’s arm. Cobiah rolled closer, under sword range, pressing his back against the sailor’s chest. Recklessly, he drove his free elbow into the sailor’s rib cage and was rewarded by a whoosh of air and the soldier’s grasp loosening on Cobiah’s wrist. Tilting his forearm back, Cobiah slammed his fist upward. Bone cracked as his knuckles creased the man’s lower jaw.

Nearby, Sykox fought far more warily. “You’re big,” he said, circling the massive thug who had guarded the stairwell. The mountainous sailor turned slowly, keeping his eyes on the canny charr. His hands spread wide, he waited for the inevitable rush . . . but Sykox only smiled and stepped again to the side.

“You’ll find no opening, kitty!” the big human bellowed. “I’ve fought your kind before. I was raised in Ascalon! I use charr hides as hearth rugs!” He drew a deep breath, bald pate shining in the sunlight. “I’ll tear out your claws and carve ’em into scrimshaw!”

Sykox lashed his tail, feinting left and right. He’d already gotten several blows in, marking his burly opponent with bloody streaks down chest and arms. But it hadn’t been enough to slow the sailor’s motions. The charr managed to turn the sailor away from the stairs. Narrowing his eyes, Sykox measured his opponent with a snarl. The thug was nearly as tall as the tawny charr, and even wider through the chest.

“Do you think I’m weak?” the thug taunted. “Stop stalling. I’m ready for you, charr!”

“You may be ready for him.” A reedy voice piped up from over the side of the ship. Macha stood on the railing of the
Havoc
, her feathered armbands and embroidered blue robe whipping in the strong wind. “But you’re definitely not ready for
me
.”

A brilliant spell flowed from the asura’s fingertips, leaping through the air in fractal twists and unpredictable patterns. In one hand she held a short scepter, and from the other poured a wild burst of magic. Serpents formed of brilliant, glittering points of light swarmed forward, writhing one over the other as each fought to reach their target first.

“Pain!” the asura shouted. Her twisting barrage pummeled into the sailor’s broad chest. “Anguish!” Macha pointed again, and the snakes lashed out around his body, their glittering, viperous heads striking the sailor again and again. “Ruin!” The final word of her spell hissed out between the asura’s gritted teeth.

Overwhelmed by agony, the
Disenmaedel
thug toppled to the ground with a shriek of pain. He thrashed violently as spectral serpents coiled about his torso, piercing his flesh repeatedly with their poisonous, sparkling fangs. Cobiah had never seen the like.

“I thought you said you couldn’t blast them with magic!” Sykox yelped, smacking at his arm where a spark of passing starlight had set fire to the fur.

Macha tossed her head, rainbow braids flying. “No, I
said
it was a stupid question.”

Across the deck, Cobiah’s assailant staggered back as the youth planted another uppercut beneath his jaw. Bewildered by the concussion, the sailor shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts—only to have Cobiah slip out of his grasp. He shook his pale hair out of his eyes and launched two quick punches. They landed with
rock-hard thuds, and the staggering pirate tumbled to the deck.

“Arrgh! Is it out? Is the fire out?” Panicked, Sykox smacked desperately at the singed area on his arm. Cobiah grabbed him, smothering the last of the flame with the sleeve of his shirt. He couldn’t help laughing at the agitation on the powerful creature’s face. “What?” Sykox moaned. “Fur is flammable!” Laughing, Cobiah clapped him on the shoulder with a wide grin.

“Get to the weapon, you idiots!” From the railing of the
Havoc
, Macha thrust her finger demandingly toward the other sailors on the quarterdeck. “Stop fooling around!”

Sykox rolled his eyes. “The woman sets me alight and then accuses me of wasting time! Completely unfair.”

Five yards away, the last two sailors worked frantically to maneuver the now-loaded battery gun into place. One spun a wheel at its base, turning the cannon on its harness, while the other desperately shoved at the barrel with all his strength. They’d turned it almost a full ninety degrees. Now, the swell of its huge muzzle pointed toward the
Havoc
’s hull.

On the main deck, charr and human sailors fought viciously. Several on both sides had fallen, and the deck was stained red with blood. A few of the humans had broken free of their catlike foes and now struggled over the side of the
Disenmaedel
, using heavy crowbars and thick oak staves in an attempt to dislodge the charr vessel. They hacked at the
Havoc
’s hull in a reckless frenzy. As they did, a few of the charr remaining on the
Havoc
shot pistols at them, glad to join in the fight. Madness everywhere.

Cobiah could see Centurion Harrow fighting back-to-back with a wounded Fassur near the
Disenmaedel
’s central mast. The captain’s white fur was stained with oil and
gunpowder, and one arm hung limply by his side. Leaning wearily against the mast, he kicked an adversary in the knee with his heavy peg leg, unloading his pistol at the human at the same time. Fassur was doing less well. Labored breathing aggravated a long, deep gash on his chest where his pelt was matted with blood. Yet the charr was not giving up; with each gasp of air, he swung his sword again, driving back the mass of humans that threatened to overwhelm the captain and his loyal second.

“Sykox!” Cobiah yelled. “I’ll man the cannon if you handle the sailors.” Pausing, he added, “But don’t kill them!”

“Don’t kill? Pish. You humans are so binary,” growled the charr, but his snarl twisted into a smile. “I should have left you in the ocean!” With a bound, he lunged toward the frantic humans. Claws outstretched, mouth open, fangs wide and threatening, the engineer vented his fury on the two humans with gleeful abandon. He was as fast as a jungle cat and more than their match. In moments, they’d both been knocked senseless. Long claw marks on their faces and chests offered tribute to the tawny charr’s precision.

While Sykox was handling the threat, Cobiah raced to the rear of the massive bombard. The vent was open but unlit, and down the narrow channel he could smell gunpowder and oil. Cotton fiber hung limply from the chamber, a thread that drove down the vent into the darkness where the charge had been packed inside the bowl of the barrel’s deepest recess. One flame, even one small spark, and the vent’s wick would catch. If that happened, the bombard would suck a breath of fire into the depths of its belly, where sacks of black powder were waiting for just such a kiss.

After that, all hell would break loose.

What are you waiting for?
A whisper, high-pitched and snarky, resounded magically in Cobiah’s ear. Startled, he blinked and looked around. Macha stood on the
Havoc
’s railing, across the divide between the ships. She glowered at him, activating her vocal illusion again.
Turn the gun and fire!

Cobiah reached down and cranked the handle that turned the bombard. Rolling it in its tight circle, he swung the barrel away from the charr ship and rocked it sharply to the right. A piece of tarred wood rested in a metal bucket beside the bombard, sparks popping and flames flickering along its end. One touch of that flame, and the cannon would fire. He planned to clear the
Disenmaedel
’s deck, point the weapon into the open waters of Lion’s Arch’s bay. Perhaps he would have—if the path of the barrel hadn’t crossed over the brigantine’s deck.

Staring out over the battle, Cobiah took stock of it. The charr captain had fallen. He lay unmoving on the
Disenmaedel
’s scarlet-washed deck, surrounded by his conquered foes. Fassur was still fighting despite his terrible wound. If anything, the dark-furred charr’s energy had been renewed with the fall of his centurion. Roaring in grief and anger, he lashed out at anything that came too close. Beyond him, a small knot of bloodied humans readied themselves for an assault. They might have been planning to murder the charr and take their ship, or simply drive the enemy from their decks and push back the
Havoc’
s prow; they might have been planning to die in battle, throwing themselves on their foe until one or both were eradicated. And suddenly, with a fire that rivaled the
Havoc
’s massive furnace, Cobiah realized he was
angry.

The charr were killing his countrymen.

The humans were killing his crew.

With a wave of possessiveness, Cobiah realized that he had to protect them. All of them.

He hadn’t foreseen his next actions; he didn’t plan them. Some slight shift in thinking altered his course, changing his intentions as fluidly as the wind altered the canvas of a ship’s sail. With the bombard pointed at the center of the
Disenmaedel
’s deck, Cobiah raised his voice and bellowed.

“No more killing!” Cobiah shouted the words so loudly that the hair on the back of his arms stood up. Even Sykox, guarding the stairwell between the main deck and the foredeck, bristled and stood still. Even with that, the two crews probably wouldn’t have stopped fighting if they hadn’t suddenly realized they were staring down the muzzle of a bombast cannon. As it was, the freeze crept over the ship like a winter frost whispering along the shoreline. Both charr and human alike turned to stare up at the youth angling the cannon’s mouth directly into the belly of the
Disenmaedel
. Yet again, Cobiah was leaping into action without thinking of the consequences, just as he had with Tosh—but this time, there was a lot more on the line than just pride.

“Wake up, you fools! Look at what you’re doing!” Cobiah roared. “You’re killing each other for no reason. Why? For glory? For gold? For the legions? Out of loyalty to a king who might not even exist anymore? Or because that’s what the charr and the humans have always done?” With a snarl worthy of a charr, Cobiah roared, “To Grenth’s realms of torment with the past! The past is dead! Ten thousand gallons of ocean just wiped it from the shoreline, along with the greatest city in Kryta—and all you want to do is kill each other?” Cobiah felt his face grow hot, his eyes filling with acrid tears in the wake of his anger. “Put your weapons down!”