"Cherryh,.C.J.-.Morgaine.4.-.1988.-.Exiles.Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

creature, who now holds lordship over Morund Keep. Qhal serve him, though his
hair is human-dark and his body heavy and of no remarkable stature; the humans
in his command fear him greatly. That is the kind of man he has become. And
Gault has brought the prisoners here, to this place where crows gather, where
the woods grow strange and twisted. He has cause to know this vicinity. In a
place not far hence the woods grow strange indeed: no beast will go there, and
no bird will fly above the heart of it. By that place Gault holds power over the
south.
But they will go no further than this, for this purpose, for the disposal of
enemies, here on the boundaries of law and reason. Horses shy and snort at the
carrion smell of the place. White bits of bone, scattered by animals, litter the
dust of the roadway, beside a bald hillЧand on that hill stakes and frames stand
against the sky, some vacant, some holding scraps of flesh and bone.
Blows and curses drive the prisoners staggering toward their fate, blows more
cruel than the others they have suffered on this march, for even the guards fear
this place and are anxious to be away. The prisoners go, bewildered; they climb
most of the way up that hill before something, be it courage, be it only the
breaking of a fragment of skull under a man's foot, or the regard of one black,
beadlike raven eye lifting from its fixation on carrionЧbreaks the spell, breaks
the line, and a man attempts escape. Then horses cut him off, two riders gather
him up by the arms and haul him screaming to the hilltop. Other riders, humans
with staffs and pikes, rain blows on the rebellion that follows, and drive the
remainder to the stakes.
"I shall not leave you destitute," lord Gault follows them to say, riding his
red roan horse to the crest, bones breaking under its hooves. "I leave you food.
And an abundance of water. Can I do more?"
Chei ep Kantory is one who hears him, but dimly, as a voice among other voices,
for the executioners have laid hands on him, as already they have taken Eranel,
ep Cnary, Desynd, and red-haired Falwyn who is Ichandren's youngest cousin. He
resists, does Chei, as he has been trouble on the march; but repeated blows of a
pikestaff bring him down, at the last without a struggle, stunned and waiting
only for whatever the enemy will do. The carrion stench is everywhere, his
groping hand feels the brittle shards of bone among the silky dust on which he
lies, the sky is a white, burning fire and the shadows of devils move across it,
press at his body, drag at his booted ankle and clamp a grip about it which does
not relax when they let him go.
A man curses. Chei recognizes it for Desynd's voice, distant and strained.
Gault's laughter follows it. And because breath has come back to him and the
shadows have gone he rolls over onto his hands, flinching from the bones, and
tries the chain. Finally, because it is a solidity in so much that is flux, and
a protection should the riders have some sport in mind, he huddles against the
stake to which he is chained.
By each of them is set a water-skin. By each a parcel of food. And the lord
Gault wishes them well, before he and his servants ride away.
Each of the condemned is secured alike, by the ankle to separate weathered
posts; and at the fullest stretch of each chain a man is within reach of the man
next at the fullest stretch of his. Their hands are not bound and they have
their armor, but that is only to prolong matters.
In the evening the wolves come, dilatory, to a prey they have learned to expect
when the riders are about. There is no haste. They are a bastard breed, and much