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

shaman invoking magic, thought Heart of a Lion, elsewise the pain-wracked
octopus would flick it off. Perhaps it hurled more magic to goad the merrow
in their attack, not that the bloodthirsty enemies of mankind needed much
prodding.

Heart of a Lion's only magic trick was the fire-wand, and he had no idea
how much dweomer still charged the tube. He should conserve his shots, he
thought, except the battle could end within minutes, with the merrow the
victors.

"What shall we do, master?"
Heart of a Lion shook his head. Chaos whirled like a cyclone around him,
and people died before he could think, let alone act. Up on the quarterdeck,
three sailors were clubbed down by four merrow who flailed their spear
butts again and again on the bloody carcasses. At the prow, the sahuagin
shaman made a tearing motion with green scaly claws, and a pirate
dropped dead, clutching his heart. The fiesty Belinda's luck ran out, for as
she belabored one merrow with a broken boarding pike, another dropped a
fist like an anvil that hammered her to the deck, which was awash in the
turpentine-reeking fluid.

All this Heart of a Lion glimpsed in seconds, then the attack stalled.
Surviving sailors and pirates clustered around their captain. All hunkered at
the starboard side of the cog, with the pirates' tethered dromon dipping
and pitching alongside. More merrow rose to the attack, some climbing the
sides of the dromon and tramping across the deck, trailing water. The
defenders were surrounded: twenty weary fighters and their aging captain,
who wanted only to go below and take a nap. Their future was bleak. Stand
and die under bludgeoning fists and claws, or jump overside to drown, or be
crushed between the ships' hulls, or else be eaten by more denizens of the
depths.
Unless...

"Grab that barrel!" barked Heart of a Lion. A half-dozen casks tumbled and
rumbled along the deck. "And that one! Broach the ends! The rest of you,
strip your shirts or sashes!"

Not comprehending, but glad to follow any orders that might save them,
the knotty-armed seamen righted the barrels and stove in the ends with
belaying pins. Ripe fumes of sap and sugar wafted around the survivors. As
blood-spattered merrow closed on the humans like a wolf pack, Heart of a
Lion ordered the shirts and sashes sopped in the liquid until it puddled
around their feet. One man hissed as the fiery fluid stung a long gash down
his shin.

"Fling the juice in their faces! Hurry!" Bare-chested men and a few women
hopped forward and whipped the wet clothing at the merrows' evil
elongated mugs. Wincing, flinching, the sea ogres shielded their sea-green
eyes from the spatters, and shied back, shoving back their bloodthirsty
mates.