"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 09 - Kingdom of Royth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

for climbing men. Blade saw one hook snag a sailor and whip him over the side before he could even
scream. And the pirate ships also had archers aboard, who were pouring arrows into the whole length of
Triumph, so that no man could safely venture out on deck to cut the grapnel lines.
Arrows hissed and whistled about Blade as he dashed forward nonetheless, toward where the duke
stood on the foc'sle deck, surrounded by his other guards. Miraculously, he made the trip unscathed,
scrambled up the ladder, and shouted to the duke over the swelling battle roar, "The captain's dead. He
gave the order to put the helm over."
"So he was a traitor. Thank you, Master Blahyd. I shall haveтАФтАФ"
"Look out!" yelled Blade. Too late, he noticed half a dozen shaggy or bald heads appear over the
foc'sle railing. A crossbow went spung and the duke went rigid, hands going up to his blood-spouting
throat to clutch at the crossbow bolt rammed through it. For a moment he stood there, long enough for
his men to turn, gape and groan; then he toppled to the deck with a metallic crash of armor. For another
moment he kicked wildly, then was still.
Blade was too busy to worry about what effect the duke's fall might have on the minds of the men.
The pirate with the crossbow had his own throat laid open by Blade's back-handed slash in a split
second. The man beside him screamed as Blade smashed the sword pommel into his face; he lost his grip
on the railing and toppled into the sea. A third man had time for one wild stroke of his own before
Blade's riposte chopped through his arm and halfway through his body.
The other three hung back, momentarily too terrified of the blood-spattered giant confronting them.
But Blade had no shortage of opponents. The pirates were swarming onto Triumph's deck by the
dozens, clambering from their own ships across the decks of the ones already grapneled fast and pouring
up the ropes. The ship's crew, unnerved by the duke's fall, were falling back or simply falling, under
sword, cutlass, and axe. The pirate archers had ceased fire out of fear of hitting their own men, and the
waist of Triumph was now a cauldron of clanging, flailing steel.
Battlemadness was on Blade, and he hurled himself into the fighting with no thought beyond taking as
many of the pirates with him as possible. He leaped from the foc'sle deck like a panther, landing on two
unsuspecting pirates and smashing them to the deck with his massive weight. Before they could recover
and try to rise, he had sworded one, daggered the other.
Aft, a man nearly as tall as Blade and even broader stood by the door to the cabins. He wore only
ragged black trousers and a grimy once-white rag tied about his unkempt blond head. In his left hand
swung a cutlass looking heavy enough to hew through iron bars. Like Brora, he had the air of a rough but
deadly leader of even rougher and deadlier men.
Blade charged, his sword weaving a shimmering web in front of him as he tore through the press of
struggling men like a mad bull splintering a rail fence. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Brora
backed against a railing but keeping three pirates at bay with his whirling cutlass. Then he was on the big
pirate, who barely had time to bring his cutlass up to guard against Blade's first stroke.
Heavy as the cutlass was, the big pirate could wield it more than fast enough. The first return stroke
whistled past Blade's ear and by a finger's width missed splitting him from shoulder to groin. His return
stroke clanged off the cutlass blade with a sound like a dropped anvil. Then they were at it hard and fast,
with a steady crash of blades and stamping of feet.
Gradually, Blade became aware that the battle uproar behind them had faded. As the pirate stepped
back for a moment, he took a split-second glance to either side. The deck was almost clear of the
defendersтАФat least living onesтАФand most of the pirates were now standing and gaping at the duel of
giants.
It was becoming a duel of weary giants now. Blade felt his joints beginning to creak and his muscles
turning to the consistency of oatmeal. But he was utterly determined to hold on as long as the pirate chief
and enough longer to drive his sword through the man's heart. Gradually, he began to realize that the
pirate, strong as he was, was tiring even faster. The cutlass no longer lashed out to whistle about Blade's
head. Instead it darted back and forth, parrying Blade's sword strokes. Blade knew that the combat was
approaching its crisis. In a little more time the pirate would realize that the only thing left for him was to