When the other man leaped, he leaped down off the foc'sle onto the main deck. As he came down, he flattened several of his shipmates, who were crowding forward to stare at Blade. Blade used the delay to study the opposition and realize that he had a good fighting chance. He was as naked as usual and totally unarmed, but he couldn't see any guns or bows. Against anything else his unarmed-combat skills should keep him in action long enough to borrow someone else's weapon. Of course it would be even better not to have to fight at all, but-

At this point four sailors started scrambling up the ladder from the main deck. The foc'sle was raised just enough so that the sailors had to use the ladder. Since it was only wide enough for two men at once, this gave Blade an extra advantage.

One sailor of the first pair was totally unarmed, but was nearly as big as Blade. The other carried a short club and had a sheathed knife hanging from his belt. He was obviously the more dangerous of the two.

Blade moved in against the man, who apparently had no idea of what he was facing. He raised his club for a roundhouse swing, which could only have worked against a complete novice or a drunk. Blade had black belts in three different martial arts, plus a knack for plain old-fashioned brawling. He ducked under the swing of the club, grabbed the man's wrist, and punched him hard in the stomach. After that the man was too busy trying to throw up everything he'd eaten or drunk recently to care how the fight went.

The other man now came at Blade, in a bare-handed crouch rather like a gorilla's. He had to come around the first man, giving Blade plenty of time to choose his attack. Blade leaped to the side, pivoted on one foot, and drove the other into the big man's ribs. The man went clear over the edge of the foc'sle, knocking one of his shipmates off the ladder as he did so. Both men landed with a crash, but after a moment of listening to their cursing Blade knew they couldn't be seriously hurt.