An excerpt from a book I'm reading:
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:25 am
From a fantasy novel set in a medieval time frame:
From on high, Cattie-brie saw the torch, and with its light, she also saw the large sacks that Harkle had inquired about. She instinctively aimed for the torchbearer, thinking to slow the smokepowder crew, but then took a chance and agreed with Harkle, shifting her aim slightly and letting fly, straight for the pile of sacks on the pirate's decking.
Her [flaming] arrow streaked in the instant before the man put the torch to the cannon, as the Sea Sprite was running practically parallel to the pirate ship. It was just an instant, but in that time, the torchbearer was foiled, was blown into the air as the streaking arrow sliced into the sacks of volatile smokepowder.
The pirate ship nearly stood straight up on end. The fireball was beyond anything Harkle, or even Robillard, had ever seen, and the sheer concussion and flying debris nearly cleaned the Sea Sprite's deck of standing crewmen, and tore many holes in the schooner's lateen sails.
The Sea Sprite lurched wildly, left and right, before Duedermont could regain his senses and steady the wheel. But she plowed on, leaving the trap behind.
"By the gods," Cattie-brie muttered, truly horrified, for where the pirate square-rigger had been, there was now only flotsam and jetsam, splinters, charred wood, and floating bodies.
Drizzt, too, was stunned. Looking on the carnage, he thought he was previewing the end of the world. He had never seen such devastation, such complete carnage, not even from a powerful wizard. Enough smokepowder could flatten a mountain, or a city. Enough smokepowder could flatten all the world.
"Smokepowder?" he said to Harkle.
"From the Gondish priests," the wizard replied.
"Damn them all," muttered Drizzt, and he walked away.
