"Cook, Glen - Dread Empire 04 - Octobers Baby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

Mocker supposed that Tarlson, aware of his position, had elected to rely on boldness and speed.

He brought his horsemen in hard and fast, with little armor to slow them. From the beginning it was obvious he was only mounting a raid in force.

Yet it nearly became a victory. Tarlson's men raged through the camp, trailing slaughter and fire. One detachment made off with cattle and horses, another drove for the Royal pavilion.

Mocker saw Tarlson at their head, shouted them on. But Vodicka's house troops and the shaghun's bodyguards were hardened veterans.

The shaghun crouched in the pavilion entryway, chanting over colored smokes. If there had ever been a time for a Mocker trick, this was it. He had begun to despair of ever winning free. He wracked his brain. It had to be something that wouldn't get him killed if he failed.

A not-too-kind fate saved him the trouble.

A wild thrust by a dying spearman slipped past Tarlson's shield and found a gap behind his breastplate. The Wesson plunged -from his saddle. With the broken spear still protruding, he surged to his feet.

A youth on a big gray, hardly more than a boy, came on like a steel-edged storm, drove the Volstokiners back, dragged Eanred up behind him. Tarlson's troops screened his withdrawal.

In minutes it was over, the raiders come and gone like a bitter breath of winter wind. Mocker wasn't sure who had won. Vodicka's forces had suffered heavily, but the Queen's men might have lost their unifying symbol...

Mocker reassumed his muddy throne. His future didn't seem bright. He would probably die of pneumonia in a few weeks.

"Ignominious end for a great hero of former times," he told his companions. He cast a promising, speculative glance the shaghun's way.

iii) Reinforcements for Ragnarson

Two hundred men sat horses shagged with winter's approach, forming a column of gray ragged veterans remaining death-still. The chill wind whipped their travel cloaks and pelted them with flurries of dead leaves while promising sleet for the afternoon. There were no young men among them. From beneath battered helmets trailed strands predicting life's winter. Scars on faces and armor whispered of ancient battles won in wars now barely remembered. Not one of that hard-eyed catch of survivors wore a name unknown.

From distant lands they had come in their youth to march with the Free Companies during El Murid's wars, and now they were men without homes or homelands, wanderers damned to eternal travel in search of wars. Before them, a hundred yards away, beyond the Kavelin-Altean border, stood fifty men-at-arms in the livery of Baron Breitbarth. They were Wessons, levies still scratching where their new mail chafed, warriors only by designation.

Rolf Preshka coughed into his hand. Blood flecked the phlegm. Paroxysms racked him till tears came to his eyes.

From his right, Turran asked, "You okay?"

Preshka spat. "I'll be all right."

On Preshka's left, Valther resumed sharpening his sword. Each time they halted, sword and whetstone made soft, deadly music. Valther's eyes sought something beyond the eastern horizon.

Preshka waved a hand overhead.

The column took on metallic life. The mercenaries spread out. Shields and weapons came battle-ready.

The boys beyond the border saw their scars and battered arms, and the dark hollows where the shadows of the wings of death had passed across their eyes. They could cipher the numbers. They shook. But they didn't back down.

"Be a shame to kill them," said Turran.

"Murder," Preshka agreed.

"Where're their officers? Nordmen might be less stubborn."

The scrape scrape of Valther's whetstone carried during a lull in the wind. The Kaveliners shuddered.