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

"Don't stand there gawking like a sea bass! Fight!" Lieutenant Belinda
shook off her panicked captors and snatched her sword from one's belt.
Whipping it overhead, both hands on the pommel, Belinda sank the sharp
blade to the hilt in an octopus limb. Shearing flesh made a sucking sound
ghastly to hear. Jumping high and hanging on the blade, Belinda carved a
furrow a cubit long that bled dark red. She called to the pirates, "Bestir
yourselves! Wedge in your blades!"
Dazzled by rapid events, and wondering what else attacked his crew, Heart
of a Lion attacked with what came to hand. The fire-casting wand. With no
better plan, he jammed the tube against the giant faintly-pulsing limb,
then whisked his hand along the polished brass. "As'tal rifa!"

Flashback almost killed him.
Heart of a Lion was hurled backward as flame blossomed from the brass
tube. A burst big as a bonfire erupted, filling his vision like a sun and
blinding him. His head and shoulders thumped the opposite limb, and he
sprawled on his broad rump. Yet the huge limb didn't quiver now, but
twisted and writhed. Rubbing his dazzled eyes, he discovered his shirt cuffs
had been singed off.

A hole big as a man's head was scorched in the octopus limb. Charred flesh
rimmed a green hole which now gushed red blood like a hole in a dam. At
the center of the wound glowed an inferno: the fireball, composed of
mystical dweomer, continued to burn and bore into wet flesh.

All this damage he glimpsed for a second, then the limb was gone. Like a
flying carpet, the neverending arms ascended into the air. Evidently the
octopus was bee-stung. It made sense, thought the dazzled pirate chief:
an octopus was unlikely to feel fire on the sea bed.
One arm retreated so quickly the marine Belinda was hoisted into the sky,
for she single-mindedly clung to her sword pommel. Only when her boots
ticked a canted mast did she let go to thump on the deck. Quick as a mink,
she grabbed a dropped scimitar and raced to the attack before the enemy
was even certain.

Berserk as a northern bobcat, Heart of a Lion sighed: the woman was battle
mad. Crawling to his feet, feeling old and slow, he made a mental note to
stay out of her way. What did they feed Imperial Marines anyway? Dragon's
blood and wolf guts? Wiping his brow, making sure he retained his fireball
wand, Heart of a Lion cast about to see what force attacked his ship and
crew.
He wished he hadn't looked.

Green weedy giants, a dozen or more, raged across both ships leaving
chaos in their wake. Heart of a Lion recognized the creatures, having seen
one dead, caught in a fisherman's net. Sea ogres, called merrow by
mariners, loomed ten feet tall yet ran thin as barracudas, with elongated
necks and bear-trap jaws. Naked, with flesh pale as a drowned corpse, the
males were stippled with seaweedy hair while the females were hung with