Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows

by Ree Soesbee

  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.

  But the hammer never landed.

  Behind the brigand, Gamina’s blades flashed like lightning strikes. First one and then the other plunged deep into the thug’s back. The bandit warrior staggered, hammer tilting forward and falling out of his hands as he collapsed to his knees. Gamina twisted her blades and jerked them out with a disdainful snarl. He fell lifeless to the ground.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Gamina smiled into Cobiah’s slack-jawed stare. “There were two more up on the dock, and they slowed me down.”

  “No problem. Looks like . . . you were . . . just in time,” Cobiah managed to say. Waves rolled up around his boots, splashing gently against the silver buckles and dark soles. Something struck him, some memory he couldn’t quite place. Cobiah’s knees gave out, and he fell, sitting in the tide. He felt Benedict’s hand on his shoulder, saw the worried look on Gamina’s features, but before Cobiah could ask what troubled them, everything went dark.

  “You’ve got to stop acting li
ke this, Cobiah. Gallivanting about after saboteurs half your age, risking your life in scraps with bandits out at the dock. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

  Cobiah grimaced. “A charr’s scolding me about being too eager to rush into combat. What’s the world coming to? Look, it’s been three weeks since that fight. I’m fine.”

  Sykox grumped, folding his arms over the lighthouse rail and enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun. “You know I appreciate a good fight as much as anyone, but you’ve always been the one who leapt before you looked. In the Iron Legion, we don’t leap until we’ve built three sets of siege engines and a tank to go in ahead of us. If Isaye were here, you know she’d say—”

  “Yeah, well, Isaye’s not here.” Cobiah shot him a dirty look. “So can we stop bringing her up already?” Below them, the streets of the city were splayed out like a thick rug, with citizens traveling here and there, huddled in their cloaks as though afraid that simply being in the open would put them in danger. Although Edair’s ships were still far from the city docks, the Krytan prince’s bullying presence could be felt throughout Lion’s Arch.

  Sykox sighed. “A pity, that. She’s the only one who can talk sense into you when you get like this.” Understandingly, the charr changed the subject. “So, what’s Edair up to now?”

  The old friends stood on the balcony of the tall lighthouse at Lion’s Gate, looking out over the bay and into the Sea of Sorrows. From here, they could see the Krytan fleet surrounding the mouth of the harbor, gold-and-green flags waving atop both high-masted ships of the line and swift scout vessels. All of the ships bristled with armaments. Cannons glistened on the decks and through portholes in rows of ten, twenty, and even thirty, metal gleaming amid the oak hulls of massive ships.

  Cobiah raised his sextant again, peering through the scope toward Prince Edair’s massive armada. “Not much. They ran off two trade vessels early this morning that were trying to sneak through the barricade. Since then, it’s been quiet.” Two ships in particular drew Cobiah’s eye. One was the sleek Nomad II. The other, sailing beside her, was the burliest galleon in the group—probably the largest ship in the world and easily the fattest and slowest glutton of a boat Cobiah’d ever seen. He could read her name in gold letters on the ship’s stern: Balthazar’s Trident. From the crown that ornamented her prow and the long pennants of green silk flowing from all three of her masts, Cobiah guessed the chubby warthog bore a member of the royal family of Kryta.

  Edair.

  “The ships won’t take action until he’s ready. Edair’s not the kind to let someone else claim his glory.” Cobiah snapped the sextant back into his hand, closing the delicate instrument before pushing it into his pocket. The activity stretched the skin across his ribs, and he flinched instinctively. The wound on his side had been slow to heal, leaving a long mark across his ribs where the brigand’s knife had sliced him open. He still bandaged the area, applying a healer’s salve to numb the ongoing pain. Sykox was right: when he’d been a young man, such things barely slowed Cobiah down. Lately, things were different. It felt like everything in the world had sped up—while he was standing still.

  The blockade had been in place nearly a month, and the city was suffering. Krytan Seraph gathered on the roads to the north, threatening land routes; though they’d been unable to fully block the roads as yet, incoming trade had stagnated. Warehouses along the docks tightened their guard in fear of rioting over food supplies. The Lionguard were working long shifts, going house to house where necessary to keep the peace. The fire had destroyed more than 80 percent of the ships at harbor that night, along with all of their wares and stores.

  The fire had also cut off the city’s hope for a rebuttal against the blockade. The ships that survived were a motley assortment of frigates and carracks—none outfitted for war. If the Krytans hadn’t torched the docks, Lion’s Arch might have been able to punch through the blockade. Now there was little hope of defeating the Krytan armada, and the citizens of Lion’s Arch were rapidly losing morale.

  With little choice and plenty of reason to fear, every wagon and cart in the city had been commandeered. They’d loaded each wagon with women and children, and then, under a flag of truce, the caravan was sent along the northern road toward the Shiverpeaks. With luck, they’d reach the mountain passes before the first icy rains of the season made the road too treacherous to travel. The Seraph agreed to give them an escort. If they made it that far, the caravan could reach the norn waycamp known as Hoelbrak before winter. From there, the refugees could travel via active asura gate to Divinity’s Reach, the Black Citadel, or Rata Sum—anywhere safer than here.

  Cobiah looked out at the sea again, the bright light of the setting sun glinting like a river of silver. Without the sextant’s clear view, the armada gathered on the horizon looked like ravens clustered on a tree branch, waiting for the city to die so they could pick its bones clean.

  “C’mon, Sykox. Let’s take the lay of the land.” The old charr nodded, matching his stiff, slightly limping stride to the commodore’s. Down below the lighthouse, they entered the city streets. While the city had yet to be physically harmed by the Krytan blockade—other than the docks at the landing, of course—it had clearly wounded its spirit. Desperation hung like a gray shroud over Lion’s Arch.

  Forsaking his typical cheery greetings, Cobiah nodded briefly to those he passed as his mind spun through every possibility. Could they bribe the Krytan captains? Pay Prince Edair a high price to keep the land? Would he even consider ransoming Lion’s Arch’s freedom like that, or was he dedicated to the idea of ruling the city? Nodobe had already given good reason not to request the intervention of one of the charr legions, but what about the norn? Were there enough mercenaries in Hoelbrak to take on the Seraph?

  Every option seemed worse than the last.

  “A word, Commodore.” Sidubo Nodobe’s smooth voice was impossible to mistake.

  Sighing, Cobiah slowed his pace. He muttered an old saying: “Think too hard on Grenth, and he’ll come riding on your coattails.”

  “What’s that?” The Elonian fell into step with them, his forehead creasing with confusion. Cobiah waved the comment away, and Nodobe went on. “I hate to interrupt your concentration, but I have bad news.”

  “Worse than the harbor fire?”

  Nodobe paused to consider, and Cobiah immediately regretted the question. “Perhaps not that bad,” Nodobe said at last. “But not particularly auspicious.”

  Cobiah pinched the bridge of his nose. “What is it?”

  “Yomm’s missing.”

  “Missing?” Sykox tilted his head and snorted disdainfully. “Hiding, more likely.”

  “Possible, but I don’t think so. One of the merchants in the plaza saw light on the asura gate platform, just before dawn. It was active this morning.” Nodobe lifted his hands in an elegant gesture. “We’ve checked. It’s not working now. Whatever—or whoever—turned it on managed to turn it off again before the Lionguard reached the platform.”

  Cobiah blew out a long breath of air. “That weaselly little traitor. I guess he did find a way to resurrect the . . . discombobulated . . . fidgit-casters. Or whatever the hell was keeping those things closed.” Shaking his head, Cobiah met Nodobe’s eyes grimly. “Check his shop. There’s a chance he’s hiding under his desk, but it’s likely we won’t see him again unless the city’s recovered. At the least, you can take a tally of whatever stores he’s got left at the mercantile.”

  “Aye, aye, Commodore.” Nodobe gave him a dignified bow and strode off toward the plaza.

  Sykox grumbled, “This just keeps getting worse. If we don’t catch a break soon, we’re sunk.” Cobiah didn’t respond. There was no need to restate the obvious, and the charr’s tail was already thrashing like an angry serpent.

  The two continued their trek through the city, from the empty shopping areas, past the blackened dock, toward the fort on the far side of the gangplank. There, several young men and women of the city
were training ferociously with weapons. Although they’d likely be little match for the Seraph (if it came to that), it gave them something constructive to do, and Cobiah approved of their initiative. He could make out Captain Hedda and her husband, Bronn, in the middle of the pack, schooling four eager young sailors with training swords.

  Too young, he thought as he watched them, far too young to be at war. Although he’d been the same age when he boarded the Indomitable, surely he’d never been so fresh-faced and naïve. “Commodore!” One of the boys waved toward him. Long brown hair, an eager smile, and loping, slightly bowed legs. Cobiah couldn’t make him out. Surely it wasn’t . . .

  “Sethus?”

  “Who, sir?” the young man asked cheerily as he trotted out of the glare. “It’s me, sir. Benedict. Remember?” The young man smiled and reached to shake his hand.

  “Benedict.” Relief washed over Cobiah. Sethus had died more than thirty years ago. How could he have made such a ridiculous mistake? “What are you doing out here?” he asked.

  “After our little adventure, sir, I figured it was time for me to learn how to use a sword.” Benedict reddened, rubbing his forehead with a nervous hand. “If I’d been trained—if I’d known how to fight, sir, that fight might have gone better. I could have protected you.”

  Benedict? Protected him? Cobiah chuckled and patted the youth on his shoulder. “You did fine, young man.” Still, although the words hadn’t been meant badly, they stung a bit: another reminder of Cobiah’s age. “Are you healing up all right?”

  “Completely, sir. Just a few scars to help me remember the tale.” Benedict showed Cobiah his upper biceps, where a few thin white trails marked the otherwise tan and muscular arms. He’d healed rapidly, another perk of being young. That was a blessing, Cobiah thought, considering that the outcome of their fight against the saboteurs could have been far worse.

  “He’s doing very well.” Bronn followed the youth, carrying his massive greatsword in one hand. The norn didn’t appear to have aged a day since Cobiah had first met him aboard the Salma’s Grace, though now he and Hedda had children of their own. Three sons: Geir, Tryggvi, and Kaive, all of whom were among the pack of young people learning weapons on the field—but who clearly had the advantage, even against charr and humans their own age. Bronn saw Cobiah’s gaze and said proudly, “Warbands fight as a team, so charr learn group tactics from a young age. Humans prefer to negotiate, so they instinctively concentrate on defense. Norn are taught from birth to be heroes.” Bronn smiled through his lush beard. “So we fight as heroes!” He laughed with good-natured pride, rich and hearty. It had been a while since Cobiah had heard the sound, and he smiled in gratitude.