Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [43]
“That’s real work,” Snaff said, nodding at the gangs. “Backbreaking, soul-crushing, hand-blistering work. They need more golems.”
“Your solution to everything,” Zojja said.
Snaff shrugged. “Magic could set these good souls free.”
“Free to starve,” Eir replied. “I don’t think these good souls would thank you to hand their jobs to constructs.”
Passing among the laborers, the band approached a great black ship—Cormorant. It was moored at the dock and built on a norn scale. The beam was twice as wide as that of a human ship, the masts twice as tall, the decks twice as thick. It was a monster of the sea, with massive black ratlines and thousands of feet of sail.
Of course, the sailors on that ship were massive, too. Norn they were, but their skins were burned brown by a ceaseless sun and a flashing sea. Their clothes were not meant for holding in heat but for shedding it. Instead of bear fur and caribou pelt, these sailors wore tan homespun shirts and brown trousers tied off with old line. The higher-up seamen were garbed in leather vests over their homespun, and officers boasted greatcoats over linen.
Grandest of all, though, was Captain Magnus himself. Intense eyes stared out beneath the silken band that wrapped his head. The captain’s neck was circled with a collar of walrus tusks, over which streamed his overlong brown hair and overlong mustache. His bare chest was crossed by a pair of leather bandoliers that sported wide-muzzled pistols. At his waist, the bandoliers became a belt, which held up a woolen kilt that draped to his knees. Leather boots were strapped from knee to toe.
The captain’s eyes fixed on Eir.
As she approached the Cormorant, Captain Magnus strode to the rail and propped one foot on a cask and propped one elbow on a knee and stared with undisguised interest. “In all the days since I left my homeland, I have not stared upon so beautiful a woman as you, or one with skin so fair. Fair to the point of whiteness. Blinding. Where is your tan, woman?”
Eir planted her feet on the dock and looked fearlessly into his eyes. “I fight ice monsters in black caves, and this fool of a norn asks me where my tan is.”
Magnus scowled, his blue irises ringed in white.
Garm’s lip drew back in a snarl.
Snaff and Zojja clutched each other.
Then Magnus laughed—a deep, threatening laugh. “And where do you think I’ve been, winning this brown skin of mine?”
“Lazing,” Eir replied without hesitation. “Perhaps in a hammock, after a night of rum.”
The scowl returned. “You think I won this ship, gathered this crew, by—lazing?”
Eir shrugged. “A typical man would not be able to. A typical man would have to work three lifetimes to gain a ship and crew like these. An extraordinary man could gain them with no particular effort. Hence, I assumed you were lazing.”
Magnus’s brow beetled as he turned her words over in his mind. “Why, sure! It was easy. A moment’s thought.” He leaned over the rail, allowing his magnificent pectorals to strain against the bandolier he wore. “When you have charisma, you don’t have to work very hard.”
“You’ll have to work harder than that,” Eir said.
“Who are you, porcelain girl, and why do you trade riddles with me?”
“I’m no porcelain girl. I’m Eir Stegalkin, who confronted and nearly destroyed the Dragonspawn, the greatest champion of Jormag.”
“You confronted the Dragonspawn?”
“Confronted and nearly destroyed. We reached his inner sanctum—”
“If this is true, you are brave!”
“We seek warriors to join us to finish him.”
Magnus’s eyebrow cocked. “You want me to join you?”
“The Dragonspawn is the champion of Jormag. He has declared war on the norn nation.”
“Jormag is a great threat,” Magnus responded, nodding deeply. “But he is only one of three dragons who have arisen beneath our feet. The dragons are rising everywhere.”
“Jormag is the dragon who afflicts your people.”
“My