"Mel Odom - Forgotten Realms - Threat from the Sea Trilogy 03 - The Sea Devils" - читать интересную книгу автора (Odom Mel)

around the creature's upper body.
"I done for ye," Khlinat declared, putting his other foot on the sahuagin's face and kicking out.
"Behind ye, song-smith, and be right quick about it, too."
Moving with the fluid grace of a dancer, Pacys whipped the staff around. The razor-edged blade
sank into the sahuagin's shoulder next to its thick neck.
The creature's momentum and speed shoved Pacys back and down as he held onto the staff. The
old bard ripped the staff free, and let his momentum carry him around. The staff flashed as the sahuagin
swam over his head. The keen blade ripped across the creature's stomach, spilling its entrails in a loose
tangle.
Two sahuagin who'd been close to the one Pacys disemboweled were overcome by the bloodlust
that fired their species. Their predatory instincts sent them after the easier prey of their own kind rather
than the bard. Their jaws snapped and clicked, biting into the tender flesh released into the sea. They
followed their dying comrade toward the seabed below.
Pacys moved the staff in his hands, keeping himself loose, but his head played the song that would
be part of the fall of the Sharksbane Wall. It was not a song of victory. The music was a dirge, a song of
defeat and death.
A dozen sahuagin surrounded the bard and the dwarf. Pacys swam toward Khlinat, putting his back
to the dwarfs.
One of the sahuagin in front of the bard lunged forward.
"I've got 'im, songsmith," Khlinat said. "Mind you watch yerself."
The dwarf sliced his right axe across, shearing off two of the sahuagin's fingers. Before Khlinat could
recover his balance, another sahuagin threw one of the barbed nets over him.
Khlinat bawled in rage and pain. He slid his fingers through the openings in the net and tried to pull it
away, but succeeded only in sinking a dozen or more of the bone hooks into his own flesh.
Pacys ripped free the keen-edged, dark gray coral knife from his belt and raked the blade at the net
strands, parting a handful of them.
A sahuagin swam across the top of the net, grabbed the loose line floating at the top of the seaweed
hemp, and dragged Khlinat easily after it.
Another sahuagin swam up from under the net and rammed its trident into the old bard's right thigh.
The sahuagin swam backward and yanked hard on the cord. The pain hit Pacys with blinding intensity.
Suddenly, a fan-shaped spray of bright red, gold, green, and red-violet lanced through the water.
Pacys experienced a sudden vertigo, then the feeling passed and he only felt slightly dizzy. The sahuagin
pulling him lost its bearing and started flailing helplessly in the water.
"Easy, Taleweaver."
The old bard recognized Reefglamor's voice and turned in time to see the Senior High Mage swim
toward him. A group of mermen and sea elves were with him. They moved among the disoriented
sahuagin and stabbed their swords and knives through the creatures' gill slits, then ripped all the way
through, bleeding them out.
Reefglamor laid his hand on the trident that impaled Pacys's leg. He spoke a few words, and a pale
green fire leaped from the High Mage's fingers and quickly enveloped the offending trident. In the next
heartbeat, the trident was gone, leaving only gray-black ash to drift along the ocean's currents. Two
mermen freed Khlinat from the net.
Further down below, the battle raging across the fallen section of the Sharksbane Wall continued.
"We are losing this fight," Reefglamor stated in a low voice.
"Yes," Pacys agreed reluctantly.
"Senior," Pharom Ildacer called. His fondness for food and drink made him more round than most
sea elves. Black strands still stained his silver hair and he wore a deep purple weave. Anxiety colored his
features. "We can't stay. The guards here can't hold their positions."
"I know," Reefglamor said. "Gather who we can, and let's save as many of them as we are able."
Ildacer nodded and swam away.