"Shirley Meier & S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millenium 02 - Saber and Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Shirley)

handles, and spouts of filthy bilgewater scudded across the deck, lost in the
wind-blown wrack.

"There's still a lot of headway on the ship." Even the rags were dangerous in
this; bare poles would have been. The small spritsail at the bow was still
holding, keeping the ship steerable, but the forestay to the mizzenmast
thrummed like a hamstring. "Ach, Koru help us! The hull won't stand much more
of this from the sound!"

The hatch flipped out of the crew's hands, grabbed by the wind and ripped back
off its hinges like paper tearing as Megan dug her claws into the deck to keep
from being dragged loose, trying to breathe between waves.

She blinked salt water out of her eyes. Stays parted with deep musical notes,
the cables flying wildly. Five or six crew were fighting to hold the two-meter
circle of the wheel whenever the rudder was in the water. She craned her head
to look as the bow rose, and fought an internal cringe: waves, waves mast-high
in black water as far as she could see, the tops ripping off into spume under
the shrieking wind until sea and sky mixed into wolf-grey chaos. Megan
coughed, waves pressed water into her nose, wind driving air out of ner lungs.
She put her head down, clinging to water casks lashed to the deck. Jaipahl
crawled over to her like a brown bug under a waterfall, a waterfall that
poured past him through the opened hatch into the hold. Bursts of seawater
smashed the bucket brigade back into the dark, and the motion of the ship grew
more sluggish, as if she had sand under her keel and no sea room. Between one
wave and the next, Jaipahl was gone.

Jaipahlll" Megan screamed into the wind. There was no answer but the empty
rope flailing on the deck where he'd been.

Below, someone screamed, and from forward the wooden shriek of the ship ran up
the scale, making Megan's teeth hurt before the mizzenmast broke just below
deck. It swayed forward, leaned to port and pivoted in its collar, grinding
the broken butt-end through the holds. The oak deck ripped.
"Jaiiiiipahhlll!!!"

The Flycatcher lurched, leaned to starboard and turned her bow out of the
wind. A wave reared over the rail and seemed to hover for a second. The slats
all along the ship's bow sprang, pouring water below. She started to roll
broadside, hesitated a long, long instant on her side at the top of wave. The
massed screaming of the slaves and crew could be heard even over the storm's
sound.

Megan looked straight down the width of the deck and down the black wall of
water stretching below. She leaped over the gunwale, onto the side of the
Flycatcher as the ship rolled, ran down to the keel coming up out of the
water, and threw herself into the sea, trying to get away from the suction of
the sinking ship. A dark shape struck her, and she clung, driving her nails
into wood and sisal cordage.