"Cook, Glen - Sung In Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

Four gnarly men stood over him, panting and rubbing bruises. Their leader snarled, "Get the wagon. Get him out of here before the other one comes." He spoke a language of the far east, little-known in Shasesserre.
Another man, kneeling over the fallen, said, "Broken neck here, Emerald."
The leader, Emerald, indistinguishable from the others, cursed the dead man for complicating his life. "Throw him in the wagon too." He kicked Preacher.

SoupЧso called since childhood, for reasons he no longer recalledЧbecame suspicious. His quarry was not trying hard enough to escape. When there was no Preacher waiting, and the gnarly man turned into Bleek Alley, he knew.
Soup trotted back the way he had come.
Soup carried no weapon but the knife he used when eating. He did not approve of bloody-minded violenceЧnot to mention that Shasesserre had laws banning civilians carrying bladesЧthough he was not shy about mixing it up when the occasion arose. None of Rider's gang were.
He stopped at a smithy, bought a pick, left its head with the baffled toolmaker.
He repaired to the mouth of Bleek Alley, listened, heard the distant creak of wagon wheels. Of Preacher there was no sign. "Trouble for sure," he muttered, and stalked into the shadows.
Trouble did not disappoint him. There was a sudden rush of feet. He hoisted his pick handle and used it like a two-handed sword.
Its heavy end tapped skulls. Gnarly men shrieked. Heads cracked like eggshells. Bones broke. Soup let out a wild howl. "Who ambushed who?" he laughed, and laid on again.
Emerald saw the way of things early. He fell back, scrambled up onto a rusted metal balcony dangling precariously eight feet above, yelled at his men to flee. As Soup passed below, shouting, "Stand and take it, you cowards!" Emerald reached down and whacked the back of his head. Soup's lights went out. Moments later he was bound and in the wagon with Preacher and several dead gnarly men.

IV
Rider went up the tower with a tireless ease matched only by Su-Cha, who levitated from stage to stage. The imp grinned down at Chaz, Spud, and Greystone, offering endless unsolicited advice.
Chaz threatened, "Any more mouth and we'll see how you rope dive without a rope." It was an empty threat. Su-Cha would fall only if he wanted.
Rider reached the high platform well ahead of his men. Below, people pointed and asked what the Protector's son was doing. He was well-known, which he did not like. It would interfere with his new work.
The side of the platform facing the Golden Crescent boasted a pair of lithe, springy fifty-foot poles of newly trimmed green wood brought up just that morning. Workmen were attaching long, tough, elastic ropes. Similar poles and ropes were installed at stages all up the tower. Later, Shasesserre's young men would place their ankles in harnesses attached to those ropes and dive into space. The springy poles would absorb their momentum and halt them just short of death. They would dive from ever higher stations, their numbers dwindling as altitude betrayed courage's limit. It would be dark before they reached the top. The remaining divers would jump carrying torches.
Rider had won the competition during his sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth years.
He glanced at the workmen, then paid them no mind. They showed more interest in him. He was a remarkable physical specimen, and a reputed genius.
The death engine stood at the side of the platform facing the Citadel. Rider asked, "Anyone touched this?"
Heads shook. One man offered, "We didn't know what it was for. What is it?"
Rider ignored the question. "Ingenious." He moved around the engine cautiously, never touching it.
"Geep!" a workman said.
"Hello to you too," Su-Cha sing-songed.
Rider faced his associates. "Look this thing over when you catch your breath, Spud. See if it's booby-trapped."
"Never again," Spud gasped. "Never again." He began studying the machine.
"You still got to get down," Chaz reminded.
"Let him jump," Su-Cha said. "Maybe he can knit wings before he hits."
"Your sense of humor is juvenile," Chaz observed.
"I'm just a young thing. Barely two thousand."
"No booby traps," Spud announced.
"Do you recognize the workmanship?"
"No." Spud looked over the edge. He swayed. Rider grabbed his arm.
"Dang!" Su-Cha said. "Thought he'd try it."
Chaz kicked toward the imp's behind. Su-Cha was absent when his foot arrived. He cackled from a far corner of the platform, perched atop a workman's tool chest.
Mumbling, the workmen started leaving.
"Let's see if my father marked his killer. Su-Cha, do you smell anything?"
The imp sniffed around the killing machine. His face puckered into one huge frown. "It's there. But weak. Be hard to isolate." He got down on all fours, snuffled like a hound. He went right to the top of the ladder and over the side, head down.
"Don't take no demon to figure that," Chaz said. "No murderer was going to fly out of here."
Greystone suggested, "We could offer a reward for witnesses." The scholar seldom spoke. When he did, even Rider listened. "Even at midnight someone might have seen him."
"Hmm. No," Rider said. "Not yet. Likely to raise questions. Maybe if the news gets out. You and Spud might visit neighborhood watering holes. If anybody did see a climber he'll talk about it."
Spud complained, "Come on, Rider. Why can't we go with you? How come Chaz and Su-Cha get in on all the excitement?"
"Chaz will miss out too. He'll be looking for Soup and Preacher. We should have heard from them." Rider slowly turned as he spoke, flicked a glance toward the Citadel. "Ah. I thought so."
"What?" Chaz demanded.
"Someone is in the lab. Thought I saw movement a while ago."
"Let's go!" Chaz whooped, and went over the side. Spud and Greystone followed. Rider examined the death machine again, then seized one of the diving ropes.
He jumped.
Workmen yelled. Rider plunged toward the Plaza. The spring in rope and pole absorbed his momentum. He came to a halt six feet from the surface, let go, landed running. His associates were not yet thirty feet down from the tower platform.
He whipped into the Citadel, climbed stairs at a pace punishing even for his iron muscles, slammed into his father's laboratory.