Free Guild Wars: Sea of Sorrows by Ree Soesbee Page B

have existed.
    He saw land, where there was nothing but ocean.
    Dark, tattered wings, as if something long dead was rising from the grave.
    Ancient cathedrals of coral-crusted stone. Torn flesh and ice-white bone against a storm-laden sky. Corpses, crawling from the waterlogged earth like maggots; bodies by the thousands, roiling like waves themselves over sodden ground.
    As Cobiah stared in shock, the wave fully crested. The Indomitable teetered in the curl of blizzard-white water,then pitched violently downward, rolling onto her back with a horrible crashing yaw. Foam shattered timbers and masts beneath the massive weight of the wave. With a low, deathly groan, the mighty galleon rolled over beneath a thousand tons of sea.
    The Indomitable was lost.

A sailor’s life’s filled with toil and strife
    The sea’s both boon and bane, O
    We’re Kryta bound on a northern tide
    Through the lightning and the rain
    We’ll sail through all these stormy nights
    ’Til we’re safe at home again, O.
    —“Weather the Storm”
    I can’t think. I should think of something. What? What was I doing? Something important. I need to think. How do I make my mind focus?
    “Draw the bilge-rat up!”
    A lurch rolled through Cobiah’s stomach, and he felt himself purge its contents. The effort didn’t stop the motion that rocked him back and forth, and he tightened his hands on the sheets wrapped about his body, unsure if he was clinging to them or struggling to push them away. Where was he? What had happened? Opening his eyes brought a painful flash of white-hot light. Cobiah whimpered in distress. Wherever he was, he wasn’t dead.
    “Lookit ’ im puke!” a too close voice roared. “This little mouse is still fighting to live!”
    “Cut its throat, like any other gaping fish,” snarled another with a ringing laugh, “then throw it back into the sea.” There were shouts of agreement all around.
    Hesitantly, Cobiah forced his eyes to focus, making himself ignore the pain that wracked every muscle and bone of his body. He lay on the deck of an unfamiliar ship, fouled in the knots of rigging still attached to a chunk of the Indomitable ’s foremast. Someone was using a sharp knife to cut the ropes. With a groan, Cobiah tried to roll over but found himself too tightly tangled in the cords that held him to the thick spar of wood.
    Memories twisted confusedly in Cobiah’s mind. Tosh, laughing and grabbing for the rag doll. The officers standing on the forecastle. The shine of a polished glow on brass arms. The billowing of white sails. Sethus grinning like a monkey as he swung from spar to spar. A dark land beyond the edge of the storm . . .
    “Keep it alive—for now,” another voice grated, and there was a thump-thump-thump echoing closer across the boards of the deck. Cobiah tried to focus his eyes on the motion, hoping to see a familiar face, or at least the recognizable colors of a Krytan officer’s coat.
    Instead, the face that leaned close to study him wasn’t human at all.
    The horrible features were feline, the skin covered with thick white patterned fur. A black nose sniffed distastefully, and the mouth parted to show a row of long, sharp teeth in the jaws of a predator. The creature moved with eerie grace, its paw-like hands sure on the ropes, tremendous claws sliding out of their sheaths to slice through the bonds tangled all around Cobiah. Cobiah stared in horror as two ears cocked forward curiously at the base of the long skull, and two more swept back with disgust. Long black horns, and braids wrapped in leatherthongs and straps of sharkskin, lay amid the heavy mane that rippled down the curve of the beast’s thick neck. Claws . . . horns . . . four ears . . . Cobiah struggled with an uncertain, quickly rising sense of alarm. That thing called me a mouse!
    “You’re sure it’s worth bothering with, Engineer?” Cobiah could barely believe he was hearing understandable words from the monster’s fanged