Джеффри Лорд: Pirates Of Gohar

Still, anyone who could pull that spear out of his thigh and stay on his feet afterward was a formidable opponent. Blade picked up his second spear and raised it for a throw. Then everything seemed to happen at once. The pirate ship swept alongside, with a terrible grinding and cracking of timbers. Part of the platform buckled and disintegrated, with a sound like a wooden box being smashed with an ax. Several pirates fell between the two ships as the platform gave way under them. Blade heard their screams even over the explosion of war cries and curses as the pirates swarmed over the railing onto the merchant ship's deck.

Blade saw a pirate coming at him with an ax, and threw his second spear almost by reflex. At close range it went completely through the pirate's torso and pinned him to the railing. After that, Blade had to avoid the rush of several more pirates. He drew his sword with one hand, raised the club with the other, and settled down to what he knew would be a long and not necessarily successful fight.

One pirate thrust a spear at him and he smashed the club down on the pirate's hand. The pirate hardly blinked, but his thrust went wide and Blade managed to turn and meet another attacker with an ax. Blade slashed sideways with his sword, chopping halfway through the ax handle and completely through one hand holding it. The pirate screamed hoarsely, held onto the ax with his remaining hand, and swung at Blade again. It was a wild swing and the pirate lost his balance without touching Blade. He went down and Blade's sword slashed across the back of his neck. Even one of the indestructible pirates of Gohar couldn't keep fighting with his head nearly hacked free of his shoulders.

By now the deck around Blade was as slippery as ice with the blood of both sailors and pirates. He shifted position in search of better footing, beating off several half-hearted attacks as he did. Apparently enough pirates had seen him fighting to look for easier prey elsewhere. Blade found himself falling back into a ragged line with his surviving shipmates. Now he had friends on either side, and time to look around. He put a spear through a pirate trying to get around the end of the line, then looked to the right and left.

The pirates outnumbered the crew of the merchant ship better than two to one, and they were brave, determined, and tough fighters. On the other hand, the sailors were just as determined, and they had their body armor and their archers.

Blade saw that one archer was sprawled on the aftercastle, his face a bloody mask, but the other was still shooting as fast as he could find targets. A good many of the pirates were now attacking with bleeding wounds or even arrows sticking out of their arms and legs.

The second pirate ship had grappled one of the smaller merchantmen. From what little Blade could make out, the pirates were winning by sheer weight of numbers. The black Goharan galley was approaching. The last pirate ship was just visible, standing off beyond the one alongside Blade's ship.

Then the black galley ran alongside the merchantman, and a gangplank was dropping across the merchantman's railing. Swordsmen poured across from the galley, while her archers held their fire as friend and foe got thoroughly mixed up on the merchantman's crowded deck.

A moment later, the brief lull in Blade's battle came to a noisy end. Drums pounded aboard the last pirate ship, and grappling hooks flew across to her comrade. Sweating pirates pulled the two ships together, and then the last ship's crew swarmed across to reinforce the first one's. Among them was a pirate even larger than Blade, wearing only a heavy leather loinguard and leather braces on both wrists, wielding an ax nearly as tall as he was. On his chest an immense claw was painted in white. He was shouting orders, and the others jumped to obey him.

The pirate chief charged straight at Blade. Blade stepped forward, knowing that he'd be in trouble if he let a man with that ax choose the distance. As he closed, Blade slashed twice, but the pirate chief was so fast that neither slash struck with its full force or where Blade intended. One left a flesh wound just above the pirate's left elbow, the other took a chip out of the ax handle. Then the pirate shifted his grip on the ax and thrust with the spiked head at Blade's stomach. Blade had to dance aside to avoid being impaled on the spike, but as he did he swung at the pirate's head with his club. The club caught the pirate just above one ear, not really hurting him but provoking him into a serious mistake.

Instead of leaving both hands on the ax, the chief reached up and gripped Blade's wrist. Blade gritted his teeth as the huge red hand tightened on his wrist and expected it to snap at any moment, but with his free hand he swung the sword twice. The pirate's right arm gaped open and bloody, then his right shoulder, then the ax clattered to the deck. Blade hurled himself backward, jerking his wrist free and feeling as if he'd left a few fingers behind in doing so. Then he raised his sword high overhead with both hands and brought it down. The pirate chief was bending to recover his ax, but this second mistake saved him. Blade's sword came down on his head with the flat rather than the edge, and instead of splitting his skull it merely knocked him senseless.

The pirate chief collapsed at Blade's feet, and a collective shudder seemed to run through all his followers. Blade dropped his sword and picked up the ax. Against opponents as tough as the pirates, its smashing power would be more useful. Then he whirled the ax completely around his head with one hand, making the air hum, brought it down into striking position, and charged forward.

The pirates' line parted as Blade hit it. The pirate to Blade's right died with the ax crushing his skull. The pirate to Blade's left sprang clear, but died a moment later with an arrow in his chest. Then Blade was in the open, with the merchant sailors swarming through the gap in the pirates' line to join him.

The merchant ship's railing appeared ahead. Blade took it at a leap, soaring clear over the narrow gap of water between the two ships. He landed on the pirate ship's platform, and heard planks crack under his impact. He leaped again, and managed to get onto the pirates' deck before the rest of the platform dropped into the sea.

Now Blade was alone on the enemy's deck. For the moment there was no way for his shipmates to follow him, but he'd attacked so fast that the pirates didn't realize they only faced one man. Now he went into action so furiously that most of the pirates didn't live long enough to learn the truth. Blade's ax danced and whirled around him, until approaching him was rather like trying to grab a rotating buzz saw barehanded. He cleared a circle around him, then started forward, stepping over the bodies and parts of bodies he'd strewn across the deck.

Before he'd gone three steps he found merchant sailors crowding around him, grabbing his arms and shoulders to pull back and shouting in his ear: «Enough!»

«Love o' the gods, no more!»

«Ye've done ten men's work today.»

«We'll not lose our lucky man!»

Blade shook off the hands and was about to reply when all the sailors started cheering so wildly they couldn't have heard him. While he was fighting on the deck of the first pirate ship, the last one had taken aboard all the survivors from both and cast off. She was a hundred yards away and her sails were filling as she turned to flee. Most of the survivors were crowded amidships. Some must have gone below and manned the oars Blade saw thrusting out of ports below the side platforms.

Blade didn't think that either oars or sails were going to get the ship clear in time. The black galley was racing in toward her at a speed rowers couldn't hope to keep up for more than a few minutes. They wouldn't have to, either. The galley would intercept the pirate ship long before the other could either gain speed or come about on a new course. A lateen-rigged ship can sail closer to the wind than a square-rigger, but a galley driven by hard-worked oars can ignore the wind entirely.