"John Norman - Gor 16 - Guardsman of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

in the vapors of the fog.
There was a cheer behind me. At the chain, settling back, its concave bow lifted fully from
the water, its stern awash, was a pirate galley. Men were in the water. Beyond this ship, too, there
was another pirate galley, crippled, listing.
"They will come again!" called Callimachus.
But this time I did not think they would attempt to so brazenly assault the chain.
This time, I speculated, they would attempt to cut it. In such a situation they must be
prevented from doing so. They would have to be met at the chain.
"Rations for the men!" called Callimachus. "Eat a good breakfast, Lads," he called, "for there
is work to be done this day!"
I resheathed then the sword. The Voskjard had not been able to break the chain.
It seemed to me then that we might keep him west of the chain. I was hungry.
"They are coming, Lads!" called Callimachus from the stem castle.
I went to the bow, to look. The fog now, in the eighth Ahn, had muchly dissipated. Only
wisps of it hung still about the water.
"Light the pitch!" called Callimachus. "Be ready with the catapults! Bowmen to your
stations!"
In a moment I smelled the smell of burning pitch. It contrasted strongly with the vast, organic
smell of the river.
I could see several galleys, some two to three hundred yards away, approaching the chain.
I heard the creak of a catapult, being reset. The bowmen took up their positions behind their
wicker blinds.
Here and there, on the deck, there were buckets of sand, and here and there, on ropes, some
of water.
I heard the unwrapping and spilling of a sheaf of arrows, to be loose at hand behind one of
the blinds. There are fifty arrows in each such sheaf.
A whetstone, somewhere, was moving patiently, repetitively, on the head of an ax.
I saw Callimachus lift his hand. Behind him an officer would relay his signal. On the steps of
the stern castle, below the helm deck, the oar master would be watching. The oars were already
outboard.
I doubted that any of the enemy galleys would be so foolish as to draw abeam of the chain.
I could not believe my eyes. Was it because the flag of Viotoria flew on our stem-castle
lines?
I saw the hand of Callimachus fall, almost like a knife. In an instant, the signals relayed, the
Tina leaped forward.
It took less than an Ehn to reach the chain. The iron-shod
ram slid, grating, over the chain and struck the enemy vessel amidships. The strakes of her
hull splintered inward. Men screamed. I had been thrown from my feet in the impact. I heard more
wood breaking as we back-oared from the vessel, the ram moving in the wound. I heard water
rushing into the other vessel, a rapid, heavy sound. She was stove in. A heavy stone, from some
catapult, struck down through the deck near me, fired doubtless from some other galley. A javelin,
tarred and flaming, snapped from some springal, thudded into the stem castle. Arrows were
exchanged. Then we had backed away, some seventy-five feet from the chain. Some men were
clinging to the chain. I heard a man moaning, somewhere behind me. I snapped loose the javelin
from the stem castle and threw it, still flaming, overboard.
 Here and there, along the chain, we could see other galleys drawing abeam of it, and men, in
small boats, with tools, cutting at the great links.
Again, in moments, the hand of Callimachus lifted, and again fell.
Once more the ram struck deep into the strakes of an enemy vessel.
Once more we drew back.