"Clayton Emery - Forgotten Realms - Forged In Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

Forged in Fire
by Clayton Emery
┬й 1999 by TSR Inc.
Originally appeared in

Forgotten Realms:
Realms of the Deep

"Have at 'em, my hearties! Sweep them into the sea, my brave ones!"

Screaming, swinging cutlasses and scimitars, pirates boiled over the side.
Bounding from the deck of their dromon onto the merchantmen's cog, bare
feet slapping the deck, the pirates rushed the quarterdeck with steel
slashing the air.

Clustered on the quarterdeck were a captain and first mate who shouted
encouragement at a dozen sailors. Simple merchantmen, they looked
reluctant to fight.
And, clambering carefully over the foaming gnashing space between ships,
came the corpulent pirate chief who urged on his cutthroats with a cyclone
of words. Named Heart of a Lion, he no longer fought toe-to-toe with
enemies, but kept to the rear to supervise. Someone had to watch the two
ships lest they ran aground, after all. He hollered, "Take them, my
fearsome children! A swift attack brings a short battle!"

Howling, thirty pirates split into two packs like wolves and surged up the
short companionways to the quarterdeck. With luck, terror would make the
merchantmen drop their arms and surrender. Yet Heart of a Lion noticed the
merchant captain, a skinny blackbearded man, had been born with a scowl,
and the first mate's face was tattooed like a desert nomad's. Too, the other
companionway was guarded by a lean woman in bright pinks and yellows,
and such people were always trouble.
Sure as taxes, he saw, the ship's officers offered the pirates straight-thrust
steel.

A pirate swung his cutlass to bat the first mate's scimitar aside, but an arm
like oak simply riposted. The pirate yelped and jumped, pinked in the thigh.
Hampered by the narrow stairs, another pirate sliced his cutlass at the
mate's ribs, but that blow too was deflected, and the mate drew blood from
a forearm. Below, in the waist, Heart of a Lion hollered useless
instructions: why would his crew never listen at sword practice? The chief
was glad to see a tall pirate finally reach past his fellows and ram hard
with a boarding spear. The first mate dodged, but banged into his captain
alongside, and the spear split his throat. Gargling blood and spraying his
enemies red, the first mate dropped.

Pirates hollered in triumph, and pushed across the red-slick deck after the
rangy captain. He bore a worn scimitar and a small round shield with a
nasty spike. He swiped viciously to fend two pirates back, then lunged at a
third. A fast chop cut a pirate's wrist to the bone. As blood fountained and