"Walter Jon Williams - Consequences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

Derec's awareness tingled: the enemy wizard was making another attempt.
Derec monitored the assault and Levett's efforts to parry it. Once again the
enemy was repulsed.
There was a flash from the flagship's fo'c'sle, then a gush of blue
smoke that the wind tore into streamers across her bows. The thud came a half
second later, followed by a shrieking iron ball that passed a half cable to
larboard. The range was long for gunshot from the pitching deck of a ship
beating to windward. Jeers rose from _Birdwing_'s crew.
Another thud, this time from the smaller galleass, followed by another
miss, this one coming close to clipping _Birdwing_'s stern. The enemy were
giving their gun crews something to do, Derec thought, rather than stand and
think about what might come, their own possible mutilation and death.
There was a bump and a mild bang from _Birdwing_'s maindeck, followed
by a hoarse bellow. Derec stepped forward to peer over the poop rail; he saw
one of the marines had stumbled and dropped his firelock, and the thing had
gone off. Marcoyn, the giant marine lieutenant, jerked the man to his feet and
smashed him in the face. The marine staggered down the gangway, arms
windmilling: Marcoyn followed, driving another punch into the marine's face.
Derec clenched his teeth. Hatred roiled in his belly.
"Marcoyn!" he bellowed. The lieutenant looked up at him, his pale eyes
savage under the brim of his boarding helmet. His victim clutched the hammock
nettings and moaned.
"No interference with the sojers!" Marcoyn roared. "We agreed that,
_Captain_!" He almost spat the word.
Derec bit back his anger. "I was going to suggest, Marcoyn, that you
blacken the man's eyes later. We may need him in this fight."
"I'll do more than blacken his eyes, by Thurn Bel!"
"Do as you think best, Marcoyn." Derec spoke as tactfully as possible;
but still he held Marcoyn's eyes until the marine turned away, muttering under
his breath, his fists clenched at the ends of his knotted arms
 Marcoyn's strange pale eyes never seemed to focus on anything, just
glared out at the world with uncentered resentment. He was a brute, a drunk,
illiterate, and very likely mad, but he represented an element of _Birdwing_'s
crew that Derec couldn't do without. Marcoyn was the living penalty, Derec
thought, for the crimes he had committed for the ship he loved.
Derec remembered Marcoyn's massive arms twisting the garrote around
young Sempter's neck, the way the boy's eyes had started out of his head, feet
kicking helplessly against the mizzen pinrail, shoes flying across the deck.
Derec standing below, helpless to prevent it, his shoes tacky with Lieutenant
Varga's blood...
His mouth dry, Derec glanced at the mizzen shrouds, then banished the
memory from his mind. The enemy had fired their bow chasers once more.
The smaller galleass fired first this time, followed a half second
later by the flagship. Interesting, Derec thought. The smaller ship had the
better crew.
A strong gust heeled the galleon and drove it through the sea. The
waves' reflection danced brightly on the enemy's lateen sails. The enemy
squadron was half a mile away. If the ships continued on their present
courses, _Birdwing_ would soon be alongside the enemy flagship in a
yardarm-to-yardarm fight, a situation ideal for the northern galleon.