"04 - Sea of Swords - R A Salvatore 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Paths Of Darkness)

Bellany, Bloody Keel's resident sorceress.
УA fog,Ф the sorceress huffed, shaking her head so that her raven-black hair
bounced all about her shoulders.
The pirate, who more often spoke with her sword than with her tongue, simply did
not understand. Bellany shrugged and began casting her strongest spell, a
fireball. As she finished, she aimed the blast not at the distant, pursuing
shipЧwhich was long out of range, and which, if it was Sea Sprite, would have
had no trouble repelling such an attack anywayЧbut at the water behind Bloody
Keel.
The surf sizzled and sputtered in protest as the flames licked at it, bringing a
thick steam up behind the fast-sailing ship. Sheila Kree smiled and nodded her
approval. Her pilot, a heavy-set woman with a big dimpled face and a yellow
smile, knew the waters around the western tip of the Spine of the World better
than anyone alive. She could navigate there on the darkest of nights, using no
more than the sound of the currents splashing over the reefs. Deudermont's ship
wouldn't dare follow them through the dangerous waters ahead. Soon enough Bloody
Keel would sail out beyond the third jetty, around the rocky bend, and into open
waters if she chose, or turn even closer inland to a series of reefs and rocksЧa
place Sheila and her companions had come to call home.
УHe's no way to know 'twas us,Ф the crewman said again.
Sheila Kree nodded, and hoped the man was rightЧbelieved he probably was, for
while Sea Sprite, a three-masted schooner, had such a unique signature of sails,
Bloody Keel appeared to be just another small, unremarkable caravel. Like any
other wise pirate along the Sword Coast, though, Sheila Kree had no desire to
tangle with Deudermont's legendary Sea Sprite or his skilled and dangerous crew,
whoever he thought she was.
And she'd heard rumors that Deudermont was looking for her, though why the
famous pirate-hunter might be singling her out, she could only guess.
Reflexively, the powerful woman reached back over her shoulder to feel the mark
she'd had branded upon herself, the symbol of her new-found power and ambition.
As with all the women serving in Kree's new sea and land group, Sheila wore the
mark of the mighty warhammer she'd purнchased from a fool in Luskan, the mark of
Aegis-fang.
Was that, then, the source of Deudermont's sudden interest? Sheila Kree had
learned a bit of the warhammer's history, had learned that its previous owner, a
drunken brute named Wulfgar, was a known friend of Captain Deudermont. That was
a conнnection, but the pirate woman couldn't be certain. Hadn't Wulfgar been
tried in Luskan for attempting to murder Deuderнmont after all?
Sheila Kree shrugged it all away a short while later, as Bloody Keel worked
dangerously through the myriad of rocks and reefs to the secret, sheltered
Golden Cove. Despite the expert piloting, Bloody Keel connected more than once
on a jagged shelf, and by the time they entered the bay, the caravel was listing
to port.
No matter, though, for in this pirate cove, surrounded by towнering walls of
jagged rock, Sheila and her crew had the means to repair the ship. They took
Bloody Keel into a large cave, the bottom of a system of tunnels and caverns
that climbed through this easternmost point of the Spine of the World, natural
tunnels now smoky from torches lining the walls, and rocky caverns made
comfortable by the plunder of what was fast becoming the most successful pirate
band anywhere along the northern reaches of the Sword Coast.