Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [83]
Caithe leaped down from the spar, striking the deck and rolling. She came up, ready to run toward the aft, but a huge, fetid figure rose before her: Morgus Lethe.
He turned empty eye sockets toward her, and water streamed through his rotten cheeks. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the aft deck. I want to cut down the last of your masts.”
“Don’t you know who I am?”
Caithe lifted an eyebrow and said, “Captain Lethe?”
“The same.” He reached beneath his tattered greatcoat and drew forth a cutlass that dripped with black ichor. “I have a blade that sucks the life out of any living thing.”
Caithe nodded politely. “Only if you hit me with it.” She lifted her white stiletto. “I’m pretty good at killing things, too.”
Captain Lethe’s vacant eyes turned toward the blade. “I’m sure you are. But you can’t kill me. I’m dead already.” He lunged for her, his cutlass spattering black ooze.
Caithe cartwheeled away, careful not to let the ichor touch her. She leaped up on a nearby barrel and bounded out past a pile of rotten line. The black stuff spattered the deck just short of her and burned through.
The captain stalked forward, swinging his cutlass. “I’m your destiny, you know. I’m the destiny of all living things.” He lunged for her.
On the Cormorant, the battle had become brutal. Undead swarmed the ratlines and sails. The fight in the tops sent a steady hail of bodies down to pound the decks below.
Those decks were awash in monsters. Logan and Eir stood back-to-back, smeared with gray flesh and black blood. Logan still painted aura in the air around them, but the undead clawed their way through it. His hammer smashed them back, and Eir used axes to tear them limb from limb.
Between these two grisly defenders, Snaff and Zojja huddled, clinging to each other. Their minds spun as their meat-grinding golems ate up the things that swarmed their ships.
But perhaps Captain Magnus had it worst. The undead formed a thicket around him. His axe cut through arms like branches. All the while that he defended the Cormorant, he stared at the enemy ship, at the creature that marshaled these undead.
All would be lost if Morgus Lethe did not fall.
With a roar, Captain Magnus the Bloody Handed plowed through undead and leaped rail to rail and landed on the deck of the undead ship.
On the enemy ship, Rytlock and Garm fought a rotting host. The undead raked them with bony fingers and bit them with horrid teeth.
But the charr and the wolf gave as good as they got. Sohothin rammed into them and ignited their tattered flesh. Garm meanwhile clamped fangs on the monsters and ripped out their bones. Rancid meat spattered him. It clung and stung. No matter how many undead they slew, more marched up from the hold, barring their way to Lethe.
Garm suddenly howled, and Rytlock turned to see why. There, on the aft deck of the undead ship, Captain Morgus Lethe towered over Caithe, his black cutlass raised to strike.
FIGHTS AND FEASTS
Morgus Lethe roared, lunging at Caithe.
She spun aside, letting the black-oozing cutlass jab beneath her arm. Meanwhile, she rammed her own stiletto between two of Lethe’s ribs.
Lethe only laughed, a hacking sound. “I have no heart to pierce.”
Caithe buried a second stiletto in his chest. It, too, brought only mockery.
“You cannot kill me!” A blast of grave air broke over her as Morgus lunged with his cutlass.
Caithe twisted aside, but the undead captain fell atop her. His blade struck the deck beside Caithe, and Morgus roared, writhing.
In his back stood the axe of Magnus the Bloody Handed.
“Whose blade!” hissed Morgus, clawing at his back.
“Mine,” Magnus said, stepping on the haft and driving the blade deeper through his spine.
Morgus jolted on the planks. “You can’t kill me! I am death!”
“Now you’re dead!” Caithe said, ramming both stilettos into his skull. She twisted, and the cranium severed and fell in two halves. Where the brains