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

"They hate the stuff!" crowed Heart of a Lion. "It offends their noses!"
"So what? It's their claws and teeth will kill us!" Always grumpy, Harun
snapped a shirt at the monsters and drove them back, but had to soak his
shirt while the creatures surged in. "We can't flick laundry at them all day!
How do we stop them? Or escape?"

Heart of a Lion shook his head, black beard waggling. He hadn't planned
that far ahead. Once the repugnant liquid ran out, or the merrow girded
their courage, they'd be massacred. What to do? It didn't help his
concentration that the leader of this murder spree, the fish-headed
sahuagin, was still perched on its tentacle, raised higher now to observe
them. The shaman croaked and rasped like a demented seagull, urging the
merrow on with curses and charms.

"I don't know what else," growled Heart of a Lion, "but I'll fry that
frog-fiend and bear it to the Nine Hells with us."
Sighting down his firecasting-wand, Heart of a Lion eyeballed the crooked
sea-devil as he stroked his fat hand down the polished brass. "As'tal rifa!"

Came a VA-VOOMF! like a volcano coughing, and the whole world exploded
into flame.

Heart of a Lion hooted as the sahuagin shaman was smashed in the gut by
a flaming fist. The foul creature bled red as it tumbled off the octopus
tentacle and splashed in the sea. But as he lowered the brass tube, he saw
his enemies, crew, and both ships were ablaze.
"Memnon immolate my soul! Who knew the stuff was flammable?"

Heart of a Lion goggled. Across two decks raged fire white-hot and
glimmering blue. Flames scurried like rats across deck furniture and
wreckage, soared up ratlines, rimmed the sails, and ran rings around the
scuppers and gunwales. High above, rigging sparkled and winked like
fireworks, and black jots of burning tar rained. Some pirates yelped as their
clothing or hair burned, but cooler heads knocked them down and beat out
the flames, or else hurled folds of canvas over them. Pirates and sailors
leaned far overside, braving the grinding hulls, to sop their clothing in
seawater. They slapped the cool brine on sparks atop people and ships.

Mindless, the merrow suffered and died. Many were ablaze. Flames licked
up their legs as if they waded a grass fire. Some beat at the flames and
only ignited their hands and seaweedy hair. Many galloped, bellowing in
pain, to the sides of the ships and dove headlong. One broke its neck
ramming the brown armored hide of a giant seahorse. Another merrow
hanged itself by snarling its long neck in rigging while jumping overboard. A
few, unable to act for the searing pain, fell on the decks and rolled and
writhed. Further saturating themselves in flammable liquid, they were
incinerated. Evil oily smoke wafting from charred corpses stank like burning
garbage. Only a couple of merrow had yet to catch fire, and they ran in
panicked circles below dripping ratlines and falling sails ripe with flame.