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

A clay globe, shattering, of burning pitch struck across our deck. Another fell hissing into the
water off our starboard side. Our own catapults returned fire, with pitch and stones. We extinguished
the fire with sand.
"They will lie to now," said Callimachus to the officer beside him. "We will be unable to
reach them with the ram."
I could see, even as he spoke, several of the pirate vessels drawing back, abeam of the chain,
but far enough behind it to prevent our ram from reaching them. Off our port bow we saw one of the
pirate vessels slip beneath the muddy waters of the Vosk, a kill of the Mira.
Small boats again approached the chain.
We edged forward again. A raking of arrows hailed upon our deck, many bristling then, too,
in the stem castle.
"Bowmen!" called Callimachus.
We spent a shower of arrows at the nearest longboat. Two men fell from the boat into the
water. Other men dove free into the river, swimming back about the bow of the nearest pirate vessel.
"Do not let them near the chain!" called Callimachus to the bowmen.
We swung to port, to threaten another longboat. This one did not wait for us to approach, but
withdrew behind the shelter of the nearest galley.
I watched the long, looping trajectory of a bowl of flaming pitch, trailing a streamer of
smoke, near us, and then fall with a hissing splash into the water nearby.
"Save your fire. Steady!" called Callimachus. Then, later, he called, "Back oars!"
An occasional stone, or globe of pitch, was lofted towards us, but fell short.
Callimachus, with a glass of the builders, surveyed the chain.
"Look, Lads," called he. "See what small respect they have for you!"
I, and some others, went to the bow. Some five longboats were crossing the chain.
"Places, Lads!" laughed Callimachus.
I had no station, so I remained in the bow. The others, mostly oarsmen, returned to the
benches, and the stern.
The men in the longboats carried swords and grapnels. Did they truly think to engage us? Our
galley, like most of Gorean construction, was low and shallow drafted, but still its bulwarks would
loom above the gunnels of a simple longboat.
The Tina knifed toward the chain. We rode over the first longboat, shattering it, its bow and
stern snapping upward, its crew screaming and leaping into the water. Another was fouled in the oars
of our starboard side and capsized. The other three fled back toward the chain.
I saw then that their action had been diversionary, to occupy us while other longboats, fixed
with wicker shields, of the sort used for naval bowmen, lay along the chain. Behind those shields,
like shapes and shadows, distinguishable behind the wicker, men tore with saws at the chain.
The diversion, though, had been too brief.
Once again the Tina approached the chain, swinging about now, broadside to the chain.
"Fire!" cried Callimachus.
Arrows lanced into the heavy wicker but, though several pierced it by a foot, they did little
damage. The shafts were
caught in the heavy wicker. Too, now, from the pirates' galleys, protecting their longboats,
there sped a fierce counterfire. The wicker shields of our own archers were now bristling with
feathers and wood.
A heavy stone broke away the railing of the stern castle of the Tina.
"Closer! Closer!" called Callimachus.
 I heard the hiss and snap of our catapults, the twisted ropes snapping loose. When the largest
one fired I could feel the reaction in the deck boards beneath my feet.
Flaming pitch was flung at close quarters. Arrows traversed the air in swift menace.
An arm suddenly appeared over the bulwark. Then a man, wet, scrambled aboard. I met him