Free Scarlet and the White Wolf [02] - Mariner's Luck by Kirby Crow

to land before they moved a 67
    Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]
    by Kirby Crow
    muscle. One volley of arrows was all Liall expected, since they were at such close quarters.
    He was not wrong, and as the Minh archers dropped their bows to the deck and blades flashed from their sheaths, Liall charged off the foredeck with Mautan and the others, roaring loud enough to wake the dead. Half of all soldiery is intimidation, and he made best advantage of his height and appearance. A Morturii swordsman rose in his path and he struck the man down as he passed, fixed on a target near the port anchor; a hook embedded in a post. Two of the fighter's fellows tried to take him down and he turned to slaughter them, wielding the double-edged sword like an axe, felling them like saplings.
    Liall struck down another Minh on his way to the side, sword straight into him and out, not even stopping to make sure he was dead. Then a larger Morturii blocked his way and they fought briefly. The Morturii was enthusiastic with his weapon, but no true swordsman. At the last, he gave up parrying Liall's thrusts and maneuvers and simply threw himself at the taller man. Liall went down with him and the Morturii rolled and kicked, seeking to get his hands around Liall's throat, but Liall snatched up a dislodged hook in the deck and pushed the barbs into the Morturii's face.
    Dazed but on his feet again, Liall hacked at a hook stuck firm in the brigantine's side and cut it away as an enemy crashed over him again and dragged him into the thick of the killing, rolling and tumbling.
    Again, Liall threw them off and rose, and while he was fighting his way back to the side to detach more hooks, 68
    Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]
    by Kirby Crow
    another Morturii clothed in flamboyant armor and armed with a long-knife in each hand came at him. The Morturii was good. Liall lurched aside from one well-aimed thrust, but the Morturii's left blade went shallowly into his shoulder. The man took a fool's moment to grin at his handiwork and Liall smashed a fist into the Morturii's jaw and watched his smirking head snap back. Liall used his knife to open a wide, red smile in the man's throat.
    On the schooner, the Minh were hauling on the ropes, dragging the tethered schooner close to their side, at last sealing their wet hulls, which screeched like mating wildcats.
    They lashed the ropes to their ship to make them fast, and then began to leap the distance between them, three at a time. Soon, enemy fighters swarmed over the Ostre Sul's deck.
    The Rshani crew were in grave trouble. They were outnumbered two to one, and they had already lost many to the arrows. They had only one hope: to cut the ropes that bound the ships together and swing away from the schooner into the swell, separating the raiders on their deck from the greater numbers of their fellows on the schooner. Then they could kill the enemies that remained on their ship and then face the second wave.
    Liall found another hook and chopped the rope free with his sword, then instinctively dropped to one knee when he heard a whirring at his back. The axe that narrowly missed his ear smashed into wood, and he stabbed back with his knife without looking, and the gut-stabbed mariner tumbled over him. Liall helped him into the sea while keeping a firm 69
    Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]
    by Kirby Crow
    grip on his knife. Losing a blade stuck in another man's throat or kidney had killed more mariners over the years than scurvy.
    It was close and dirty fighting from that point: stabbing up under the ribs, wielding the sword crudely, chop and hack and slash as the battle became more like butchery than war. He went down once under a press of Morturii and took the opportunity to hamstring two or three of them, then rose from the deck, throwing the bodies off him with a roar. A Minh swordsman darted in under his guard and thrust upwards. Liall danced aside, but not swiftly