"David Weber - The Excalibur Alternative" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

More than Honor
Worlds of Honor
Changer of Worlds
MutineersтАЩ Moon
The Armageddon Inheritance
Heirs of Empire
Path of the Fury
The Apocalypse Troll
The Excalibur Alternative
Oath of Swords
The War GodтАЩs Own

with Steve White:
Insurrection
Crusade
In Death Ground
The Shiva Option (forthcoming)

with John Ringo:
March Upcountry
March to the Sea




For Bobbie and Sharon, my two favorite ladies.



-I-
^┬╗
Demon wind greeted pallid daylight with hell howl fury. It was no true daylight, although
somewhere above the clouds of seething black the sun had heaved itself once more into the
heavens. It was only the devilтАЩs own twilight, slashed with body-smashing sheets of rain and
spray, the rolling concussion of thunder, the bellow of wind, and the endless keen of rigging,
all punctuated by the sodden percussion of torn canvas flailing to destruction.
Sir George Wincaster, Third Baron of Wickworth, clung to a stay, feeling it quiver and
groan with strain while he kept to his feet by raw, hopeless force of will alone. The lifeline the
vesselтАЩs captain had lashed about him when the hideous gale first burst upon them yesterday
morning had ringed his chest in bruises, salt sores stung his lips, and rain and spray had
soaked into his very marrow. He felt as if heavy horse had charged over him and back again,
and despair was a leaden fist about his heart. He had been too ignorant to understand the
captainтАЩs terror when first the weather broke, for he was a soldier, not a sailor. Now he
understood only too well, and he watched almost numbly as the battered cog, creaking and
groaning in every frame and stringer, corkscrewed down yet another mountainous, slate-gray
wave, streaked with seething bands of spray and foam, and buried its round-cheeked prow
deep. Water roared the length of the hull, poison-green and icy as death, plucking and jerking
at his limbs and groping after every man on the staggering shipтАЩs deck. The hungry sheet of
destruction smashed over Sir George, battering the breath from him in yet another agonized
grunt, and then it was past and he threw his head up, gasping and hacking on the water which