Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows (53 page)

“Cobiah!” a voice screamed defiantly from the
Nomad II
. “No! I won’t let them take him!”

Isaye.
He focused his will on the sound. While the
Balthazar’s Trident
had been in danger, he’d been content to take a beating, possibly even die, so that Isaye’s son would be safe. But now, with the ship out of combat and the
Indomitable
threatening to submerge, Cobiah’s survival instinct surged to the fore. He had to fight, had to find a way to get free of the ship before it dove beneath the waves and returned to Orr. He had to get back to her. Again, he heard Isaye calling frantically, refusing to give up on him. No matter what had passed between them, Sykox had been right. Cobiah still loved her. He always would.

The lines that stretched between the
Nomad II
and her prey, designed to keep the
Indomitable
from separating, now stretched to their limit. The weight of the
Indomitable
’s descent pulled at the
Nomad II
with ponderous strength. The smaller clipper, weighed down by the force of the towering ship of the line, began to lurch dangerously to starboard. Bosun Rahli leapt from the quarterdeck, leaving behind three fallen Orrians. Blade ready in her hand, she hacked at one of the thick hemp ropes. “Captain!” she commanded. “We have to cut the stays! The Dead Ship’s submerging—she’ll drag us to the ocean floor!”

Isaye pulled her blade from a defeated enemy and turned toward the
Indomitable.
Her dark, silver-touched hair blew around her face like a thundercloud threaded with lightning, and her eyes were filled with fear. “Cobiah!”

“We have to free the
Nomad
, or it’ll be the death of us all! Captain!” the bosun screamed. “Your orders?”

“Cobiah!”

Cobiah’s blue eyes met Isaye’s hazel ones, with a hundred dead men in between. There was no time for words, nor could she have heard him over the furor and combat
between them. Instead, he nodded to her, absolving her of the decision. Tears streaming from her eyes, fists clenching on the ship’s rail, she called to Rahli, “Cut the ropes.”

“Aye, Captain!” Rahli did not pause even for a second. “Sever the lines! Free the
Nomad
before we find ourselves in that monster’s gullet!” Sailors rushed to obey her orders, but the press of undead kept them from the heavy ropes. Rahli was attacked by two hideous, scrabbling wights even as her blade sank into the hemp, and she was forced to pull her sword from the task to defend her life instead. Back on the
Indomitable
, Captain Whiting laughed. The dragon’s will infused the Orrians, coordinating their response—defending the ropes even as the black-hulled galleon pulled them all into the sea. The
Nomad II
was far too rich a prize to abandon.

Nearby, the Maw circled the two ships, its huge mouth snapping up anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the waves. The more their valiant ship listed, the more the living had to fight just to stay aboard—and the more easily the undead, whose clawed feet and bone-spur fingertips bit deeply into the wood, could keep them from severing the lines.

Spying a fallen weapon caught in the
Nomad II
’s cargo nets, Tenzin yelled down to the deck, “Rahli! Throw me that rifle!” Tossing down the harpoon gun, Tenzin caught the long gun when the bosun hurled it into the air. Balanced lengthwise on a yardarm, he drew steady aim on the ropes, planning to shoot them free.

Then Chernock struck.

The wight had been biding her time, moving cautiously among the rigging, all but forgotten in the press of combat. When Tenzin turned his attention to the ropes, she seized her opportunity. Leaping out from
behind a spiderweb of ropes and mast, the wight landed on the yardarm, sinking her claws into the Krytan’s back with a vindictive glee, her leathery face stretched into the vile semblance of a smile. Tenzin screamed in agony, rifle firing uselessly as she ripped into his flesh like a cat sharpening her claws. Chernock shrieked her bloody victory to the sky, raising one hand to lop away the Krytan’s head.

Cobiah saw it all happening from the deck of the
Indomitable
, where the undead dragged him toward the lower hatches beneath their captain’s approving gaze. Seizing an opportunity, Cobiah tore a pair of pistols from a zombie’s belt, turning them toward the
Nomad II
. He could have used them to end his life before the ship submerged, or to fire on Captain Whiting—but Cobiah never even thought of himself. Instead, he fired across the gap between the two ships, and the bullets ripped through Chernock’s body. The impact pushed the wight back, inch by inch, with the pounding force of repetition until at last, she collapsed in final death and fell into the sea. “Now, Tenzin!” Cobiah yelled, desperate to see the
Nomad II
safely away.
“Cut the lines!”

“Aye, Commodore!” Despite the agony of his wounds, the sharpshooter raised his rifle and fired, reloading with incredible speed to fire again and again. With each shot, a hemp line snapped. It took eight shots, emptying Tenzin’s belt pouch of ammunition—but at last, the
Nomad II
pulled free.

The clipper rocked to her port with the sudden release of liberation. Water splashed in thick, blood-touched foam around the
Indomitable
’s gunwale as the sudden sway of the
Nomad II
’s release hurled the Dead Ship to its starboard. Taken by surprise, the undead were toppled left and right—and Cobiah found himself suddenly free.
Leaping up, he thrust an elbow into Tosh’s face, cracking the undead sailor’s jaw and hurling him aside. Cobiah’s foot caught another zombie in the kneecap, and the monster crumpled to the tilting deck, sliding rapidly toward the edge of the ship. With a scream, the sailor tried to grasp the rotten boards, the railing, anything that would keep him from the water, but his clawed hands caught nothing, and he slid into the waiting jaws of the Maw.

Still holding the pistols, Cobiah clocked one of the undead with the hilt of an empty gun. He laid about with abandon, pounding squishy flesh and raw muscle, breaking bones and shattering barnacles that covered rotting, putrid skin. With rugged determination, he fought his way to the railing of the
Indomitable
’s deck and stared across the steadily growing chasm between the two ships. The Maw still thrashed about between them, snapping its teeth in the air where tantalizing shadows fell across the sea. One jump, one massive leap, and so long as he didn’t fall, he’d be safe aboard the
Nomad II
. He saw Isaye rush to the railing on the other side, her hands reaching desperately over the gunwale. “Jump, Cobiah,” she yelled to him.

Suddenly, pain exploded through Cobiah’s body as a knife dragged its way between his ribs. “
Escape? No. You’re a deserter, Marriner
.” Captain Whiting twisted the blade savagely before letting go. “
And now you will die
.”

Cobiah turned, grasping the hilt of the dagger. Rage overwhelming the pain, Cobiah pulled it out and reversed the blade, raising it to thrust the edge into Whiting’s fleshy throat. The captain’s bone fingers clenched around his wrist as the wight struggled to escape the slowly piercing blade. Cobiah grinned wickedly, forcing the dagger to cut through bone and enchantment as the greenish flame in Captain Whiting’s eyes quavered in
sudden fear. “Deserter? No. The word you want, Captain, is ‘mutineer.’ ” With a fierce twist of the dagger’s long blade, Cobiah severed the captain’s spine, cutting the monster’s head from his rotting body.

As Whiting fell, the
Indomitable
shuddered to its core, and the brass figurehead on the bow let out a long, keening wail as if it, too, felt the blow of the captain’s death. The Maw surfaced with a roar of its own, and from every Dead Ship left in the Orrian armada, a cry of unified anguish rose from slavering orifice and torn jowl, as if the dragon itself were screaming.

“Cobiah!” On the
Nomad II
’s deck, Isaye called to him desperately as the gulf between them grew ever wider. He could see that the clipper was dead in the water, one mast collapsed and the other ravaged by grapeshot. Even though the
Nomad II
was free of the
Indomitable
’s pull, Isaye’s ship could not give chase, nor even remain alongside the black vessel. Her sailors rushed about, trying to save the
Nomad II
from sinking, but that was the most they could do.

The
Indomitable
was crumbling around him, her black masts cracking from deck to high tip, keel twisting as though the ship was writhing in agony. Cobiah watched the deck boards collapse, creating gaping holes in the upper deck, yawing open to reveal sickly, mold-covered holds below. The smell that rose from within the ship was noxious, like decayed flesh and rancid blood, threatening to choke Cobiah with every breath.

Behind him, another voice whispered, “Coby . . . You were right about Orr. It’s so beautiful. The ancient cathedrals, the palace of the gods, the magic . . . Remember how we used to talk about all the riches it contains, all the secrets waiting to be discovered? Come with me, Coby . . . I’ll show it to you . . .” Sethus’s voice was plaintive, and he
extended a rotting, pustule-covered hand. The
Indomitable
was settling into the water, plunging lower with each sweep of the waves. Cobiah remembered the dreams of their youth, the long hours they’d spent talking about just such things. Promising to go there together. “Stay with me . . .”

“Good-bye, Sethus,” Cobiah choked out, his wounds aching with a cold more biting than the seawater. He dropped the dagger and clutched Biviane’s doll tightly in his one good hand. “Good-bye.”

His wounds bleeding, his body wracked with pain, Cobiah looked over the twisted deck railing at Isaye, meeting her eyes across the widening gulf of water between them. Never losing sight of her, he put his foot on the
Indomitable
’s gunwale and leapt into the sea.

T
he ocean current spun Cobiah around and around, dragging him after the sinking
Indomitable.
He fought against it, but his wounds were grave and his body weary. He could barely even kick his feet through the water, struggling to stay alive despite all the odds. The Maw’s tail slid past, but the creature was too eager, the sea too full of lashing bodies and sinking wreckage, and it missed Cobiah by several feet. Just as he was beginning to give up, fearing the light above him was no longer the surface of the waves, Cobiah felt something snag on his body, dragging him out of the sea. It was too hard to be an arm: wooden, tipped with metal. A boat hook, then. One of Isaye’s sailors?

But as he broke the surface of the chopping waves, Cobiah realized the
Nomad II
was too far away to be his savior.

“Ready? Heave!” The boat hook dragged Cobiah back against the side of a massive galleon, the wood cracking against his shoulder painfully as he was pulled up her hull toward the topside of the ship. He spat water, kicking off his soaked boots to lighten the load, and clawed his way through the rail onto the deck boards. Once safely there, Cobiah untangled himself from the boat
hook and stared up into a white-faced group of Krytan sailors. He was aboard the
Balthazar’s Trident
.

“Is he alive?” Prince Edair put his hand on Cobiah’s shoulder. “Commodore—are you injured?”

“Yes.” Cobiah blinked salt water out of his eyes, shivering from the cold of the sea. “If you’re going to make me a prisoner, I’d rather you just kill me now. I’d rather die on deck than drown in the bilge like some kind of . . . of . . . stowaway skritt.” His stomach churned with sea-water and disappointment.

Edair’s brown eyes softened. “I’m not sending you to the brig, Commodore, though I do intend to have strong words with the individuals who took it upon themselves to countermand my orders in that regard.” Edair flashed an indignant glance at Livia. “Nevertheless, I watched what you did on that great black galleon—leaping across to face the undead captain one-on-one? I’ve never seen anything like it.” The prince of Kryta grasped Cobiah’s hand and pulled him to his feet, supporting Cobiah with his shoulder when the older man’s knees failed to gain balance right away. “Your actions saved my ship from destruction. I . . . may have misjudged you.”

“ ‘May have’?”

The prince shook his head. “We’ve no time for argument, Commodore. You’re needed.” Edair pointed across the ocean, indicating the battle taking place around them. One of the Seraph came forward, and Edair took the man’s proffered cloak, placing it on Cobiah’s shoulders and wrapping it around his shivering body. “That black-sailed devil of a ship is gone, but my armada’s not doing well. We were unprepared for this assault. Though they have fought bravely, you and the
Nomad
have taken on the lion’s share of this fight. With the reinforcements from your
city—however odd—we may yet have a chance against these Dead Ships.

“But I hold no such hope for victory against
them.”
Edair’s finger pointed toward the xebecs with scarlet sails. “The
Trident
is uninjured and ready to fight. But I . . .” The prince’s voice failed him, and his jaw stiffened with pride. He moved out from under Cobiah’s shoulder, allowing the commodore to stand on his own among the Seraph marines. “I saw you command the
Nomad
,” Edair added. “I’m asking you to do the same with the
Trident
. Although the fight is going well—”