Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [79]
“Spacious! Tremendous!” Snaff said.
Zojja started to march off the dimensions of the room.
Snaff went on, “We could fit two golems in here if we put the table, bunk, ale cask, and so forth into storage.”
The captain colored slightly but managed a laugh. “No. This is the captain’s quarters, not the golems’ quarters.”
“Fifty feet wide by forty feet deep,” Zojja announced with satisfaction.
“Fifty by forty?” Magnus said. “It’s hardly twenty-five by twenty!”
“I’m using asuran feet. More accurate,” Zojja said. She glanced at his boots. “I’d never measure in norn feet!”
Huffing in annoyance, Magnus reached down to cup the asura’s backs and shuffle them out of his quarters. “How about we look in the hold? Plenty of room in the hold for golems.”
“The hold!” Snaff gazed admiringly at the captain. “Where you hold things. You maritime types are quite literal, aren’t you?”
Captain Magnus shepherded them across the deck, ignoring the sniggers of his mates. He jabbed fingers into a wooden grate and yanked it upward. “There it is—the hold of the Cormorant, big enough for a thousand large crates.”
Snaff and Zojja waddled up to the hatch and stared down into the huge, dark hold, loaded with crates and casks. The asura began muttering back and forth.
“A thousand large crates? I’d say ten thousand large crates.”
“He’s talking norn-large, not asura-large.”
“Ahem,” Captain Magnus interrupted. “How does it look to you?”
“Most suitable!” Snaff pronounced with a grin. “Of course, we’ll have to off-load all this cargo, and you won’t be able to man the cannons you have down there, and we’ll need to cut six new hatches, three along each rail, with trapdoors—”
“Cut new hatches? With trapdoors? The crew will fall through!”
Sighing, Snaff climbed up on a nearby barrel so he could look the captain in the eye.
“What is it?” Magnus asked.
“Eir said we needed to turn your ship into an undead destroyer,” Snaff explained patiently. “This is how we’ll do so.”
Captain Magnus stroked his black mustache. “I suggest a change of plan. You’ll not be turning Cormorant into an undead destroyer. You’ll be doing it to that ship.” He pointed to a vessel moored nearby. “A barque.”
Snaff dubiously scanned the ship. “Bark like a dog?”
“No, barque like a ship. You should know barques. They’re asuran. Just your size.”
It was not just small. It was decrepit.
“Hmm,” Snaff mused. “Looks burned.”
“Part of it is. But, look, it’s seaworthy. It’s got a solid hull. That’s all you really want, right?”
Snaff sniffed. “It’s too small.”
“Take two, then,” Captain Magnus said, gesturing to a second barque docked in the shadow of the first. It was somehow even shabbier.
“Where’d you get them?”
“Saved them—but only just—from Morgus Lethe,” said the captain. “Both crews—asuran crews—were lost.”
“Sadly, asuran krewes are often lost,” Snaff said reflectively. After a few more moments of thought, Snaff jabbed his hand out toward the captain. “We’ll take them. Very soon, those barques will be barking at Morgus Lethe!”
Smiling ruefully, the captain took the asura’s tiny hand and shook it.
The preparations for war took two months.
While Snaff and Zojja labored away to retrofit the pair of barques, Eir, Logan, Rytlock, Caithe, and Garm learned the ways of the sea. Captain Magnus took them out in the Cormorant for training expeditions.
They learned how to keep their feet on rolling decks, how to climb ratlines in a gale, how to furl and unfurl sail, how to hurl grapnels and board ships and fire blunderbusses. More than once, a companion ended up in the drink, and sadly for Rytlock, no hyenas were near at hand. After his first plunge, sinking like a stone, Rytlock was required to wear a safety line tied around his waist. Of course, when they used it to to haul him out of the sea, he rose backside first. Rytlock quickly learned to swim, if only to shuck that embarrassing line.
He also learned to keep down his lunch, though he would often