"Cook, Glen - The Black Company 04 - The Silver Spike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

"About long enough to figure out how to go over the hill. Yeah. He's all right."

"He was in long enough to learn how it works. We might run into soldiers up there. Would your heart be broken if they found him in an alley with his head bashed in?"

That was an easy one. "No." His heart would be fine as long as it wasn't Smeds Stahl they found.

"How about Old Man Fish? He used to trap in the Great Forest."

"Couple of straight arrows."

"That's what we need. Honest crooks. Not some guys who might try to do us out of our share. What do you say? Want to go for it?"

"Tell me how much is in it again."

"Enough to live like princes. We going to go talk to those guys?"

Smeds shrugged. "Why not? What have I got better to do?" He looked at the ceiling. "You better get some clothes on."

Heading down the stairs, Smeds said, "You'd better do the talking." "Good idea."

Heading up the street, Smeds asked, "You ever killed anybody?"

"No. I never needed to. I don't see where I'd have any problem."

"I had to once. Cut a guy's throat. It ain't like you think. They spray blood all over the place and make weird noises. And they take a long time to croak. And they keep trying to come after you. I still get nightmares about that guy trying to take me with him."

Tully looked at him and made a face. "Then do it some other way next time."





III



Each night there was moonlight enough, a thing came down out of the northern Great Forest, quiet as a limping shadow, into the lorn and trammeled place of death called the Barrowland. That place was heavy with the fetor of corruption. A great many corpses lay rotting in shallow graves.

Limping on three legs, the thing cautiously circled the uncorrupted carcass of a dragon, settled on its haunches in the hole it was digging so patiently, night after night, with a single paw. While it worked it cast frequent glances toward the ruins of a town and military compound several hundred yards to the west.

The garrison had existed to shield the Barrowland from trespassers with evil intentions and to watch for signs that the old darkness in the ground was stirring. Those reasons no longer existed. The battle in which the digging beast had been crippled, in which the dragon had perished, in which the town and compound had been devastated, had put an end to the need for a military stewardship.

Except that it had not occurred to anyone in authority to give the surviving Guards new assignments. Some had stayed, not knowing what else to do or where else to go.

Those men were sworn enemies of the beast.

Had it been healthy, the thing would not have been concerned. It could have dealt with those men easily. Healthy, it was a match for any company of soldiers. Crippled and still suffering from a dozen unhealed wounds, it would not be able to outrun a man let alone outfight those it would have to get through before it could pursue the messenger the Guards were sure to send flying to their masters if they discovered it.

Those masters were cruel and deadly and the beast stood no chance against them even when in the best of health.