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

or muscles, only a slight shortness of breath. It began to look as if Lord Leighton was right about the
KALI capsule. It did drastically reduce the stresses of a transition into Dimension X.
 Then the world around Blade took shape. He saw that the reduced stress of the KALI capsule was
probably going to save his life. He'd joked many times about how one day he might have to fight the
moment he landed in a new Dimension. This time it was no joke.
He stood on the foc'sle of a fairly large sailing ship well out to sea. He could see an endless blue
horizon all around him, and other ships close on either side. Then matters and people even closer at hand
brought themselves forcibly to his attention.
Two men were standing even farther forward than Blade. Apparently he'd taken solid shape before
them as they did the same before him. One man turned the color of a dirty bedsheet, and his eyes
seemed about to pop out of their sockets. Then his brain pushed his body into motion. With a wild yell he
leaped into the air, clearing the railing like a high-jumper and vanishing over the side.
When the other man leaped, he leaped down off the foc'sle onto the main deck. As he came down,
he flattened several of his shipmates, who were crowding forward to stare at Blade. Blade used the delay
to study the opposition and realize that he had a good fighting chance. He was as naked as usual and
totally unarmed, but he couldn't see any guns or bows. Against anything else his unarmed-combat skills
should keep him in action long enough to borrow someone else's weapon. Of course it would be even
better not to have to fight at all, butтАФ
At this point four sailors started scrambling up the ladder from the main deck. The foc'sle was raised
just enough so that the sailors had to use the ladder. Since it was only wide enough for two men at once,
this gave Blade an extra advantage.
One sailor of the first pair was totally unarmed, but was nearly as big as Blade. The other carried a
short club and had a sheathed knife hanging from his belt. He was obviously the more dangerous of the
two.
Blade moved in against the man, who apparently had no idea of what he was facing. He raised his
club for a roundhouse swing, which could only have worked against a complete novice or a drunk. Blade
had black belts in three different martial arts, plus a knack for plain old-fashioned brawling. He ducked
under the swing of the club, grabbed the man's wrist, and punched him hard in the stomach. After that the
man was too busy trying to throw up everything he'd eaten or drunk recently to care how the fight went.
The other man now came at Blade, in a bare-handed crouch rather like a gorilla's. He had to come
around the first man, giving Blade plenty of time to choose his attack. Blade leaped to the side, pivoted
on one foot, and drove the other into the big man's ribs. The man went clear over the edge of the foc'sle,
knocking one of his shipmates off the ladder as he did so. Both men landed with a crash, but after a
moment of listening to their cursing Blade knew they couldn't be seriously hurt.
Either luck or foresight had made the last man snatch up a short sword with a curved single-edged
blade, rather like a machete but with a heavily weighted pommel. The sailor held his sword low and to
one side, and waved a length of red cloth in the other hand.
Does he think I'm a bull? thought Blade. Then the man was coming in, much too fast to be a joking
matter. Blade dodged, and saw that one end of the red cloth was wound around the man's wrist. As he
closed again, Blade snatched up the club dropped by the first man, and with his other hand grabbed the
end of the red cloth. A tremendous jerk with all Blade's weight and strength behind it yanked the sailor
off-balance. Then Blade brought the club down across the sword arm. He heard bone crack and the
sailor scream, knew he'd struck harder than he intended, and snatched the sword from the sailor's limp
fingers.
As Blade raised both the sword and the club, the disarmed sailor decided he was too much to tackle
now, and went back down the ladder as fast as he could. Blade let him go. He'd driven off the first attack
without killing or apparently even seriously hurting any of his four opponents. Now perhaps the ship's
crew would realize they couldn't easily stamp him into the deck. Then they might be willing to talk peace.
Blade saw that the ladder up to the foc'sle was only tied in place. Two quick slashes cut the ropes,
and a push sent it clattering down onto the main deck. Now it would be even harder for the crew to get