"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 32 - Pirates of Gohar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

manned the oars Blade saw thrusting out of ports below the side platforms.
Blade didn't think that either oars or sails were going to get the ship clear in time. The black galley
was racing in toward her at a speed rowers couldn't hope to keep up for more than a few minutes. They
wouldn't have to, either. The galley would intercept the pirate ship long before the other could either gain
speed or come about on a new course. A lateen-rigged ship can sail closer to the wind than a
square-rigger, but a galley driven by hard-worked oars can ignore the wind entirely.
The gap between the pursuer and the pursued shrank to two hundred yards, then one hundred. The
decks of the galley were almost deserted, and now Blade saw why. She'd left half her fighting men to
defend the second merchantman and board the pirate attacking her. The rest of the crew was now below
at the oars. Dividing your forces this way was always a gamble, but here it looked like a winning one.
Blade hoped he'd have a chance to meet the galley captain, who seemed to know his business.
As the black galley closed in, the pirates saw they weren't going to escape and instead turned to meet
their enemy. The pirate's oars thrashed, trying to turn the ship around in spite of the drag of her sails to
meet the galley bow to bow. The pirates didn't succeed. The galley swept in, her oars suddenly trailed as
her rowers braced themselves for the crash, then her ram drove hard into the pirate's port side. Even
across several hundred yards of water Blade heard the screams from pirates crushed by the ram or
maimed by flailing oars. Other pirates flew into the air, as if from a springboard, as the port-side platform
buckled under them.
The pirates started throwing grappling hooks, and if they'd been able to hold the galley they might still
have boarded her. Instead the galley's rowers backed water furiously, pulling clear of their crippled
enemy before any hooks could land. The galley's oars trailed again as the rowers poured up on deck,
snatching up weapons apparently laid out ready for them.
As it turned out, there wasn't much further work for the galley's crew. Before she was well clear of
the pirate, the other ship was listing sharply to port. A few pirates dropped their weapons and began
leaping over the side. The rest clung to the rigging, apparently determined to go down with their ship. The
galley made no effort to pick up the swimmers. In fact, as soon as they were within range, the men on her
deck started hurling spears and stones and shooting arrows at the pirates in the water. One by one they
screamed and thrashed out their lives in a flurry of blood and foam, or just quietly sank. By the time the
last of the swimmers was gone, so was the pirate ship. Nothing was left behind except a dozen or so
floating bodies, and a patch of sea faintly tinted pink.
The cheering around Blade had stopped when the galley rammed the pirate. Now it started again,
and much of the cheering was for Blade. If the deck of the pirate ship hadn't been slick with blood and
swaying gently to the waves, some of Blade's shipmates would have tried to lift him on their shoulders.
As it was, they pounded his back and shoulders and embraced him until he felt he wanted some armor to
keep his ribs intact. Most of the Goharans were smaller than he was, but they seemed to be nearly all
muscle.
At last Blade pushed his way clear of the sailors and scrambled back aboard the merchant ship. If
the Goharans fought the pirates without taking prisoners, Blade wanted to get back to the pirate chief
he'd stunned and protect him. As a matter of principle, he'd be damned if he was going to let anyone kill
a man he'd taken prisoner. Also, he wanted to learn more about the pirates than he suspected the
Goharans would care to tell him. He was on the Goharans' side for now, but that sort of thing could very
easily change in Dimension X.


Chapter 4
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Blade was wrong about the Goharans taking no prisoners when they fought the pirates. The men the
galley left behind aboard the small merchantman quickly cleared her deck of pirates, then boarded the
pirate ship alongside. By the time the rammed pirate ship sank, the galley's men were well on the way to
capturing the last enemy. A few more minutes, and some of the pirates started jumping overboard, to