"Daley, Brian - Coramonde 01 - The Doomfarers of Coramande UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daley Brian)

The Duke's voice was brittle with rage. "Insolence? Insolence?" He slammed his chest with a battered, vein-mapped fist. "/ am Coramonde's bastion in the East; from the shadows of Spearcrest to the foot of the Keel of Heaven I am the arm and eyes of Coramonde! How many times has my family defended our stone donjon with our lives at risk? Do you even know, you who were born in another country? I have paid my homage, aye, and paid again. Who questions Hightower's right to say his say at Earthfast?"
Fania couldn't speak to this, nonplussed in the face of truth so furiously set forth. But an inhumanly calm voice spoke next, one that had always sent fear shooting through every inch of Springbuck's being. He didn't have to turn or squint to know that "it was Yardiff BeyЧYardiff Bey who was a figure of awe even among other sorcerers.
The Prince knew that he could never have emulated Hightower, who looked to where Bey stood, near the Queen, and met that mesmerizing stare without qualm. Bey's dark countenance was transformed into something unearthly by the eerie ocular of green malachite and silver that he wore in replacement of his left eye. All emotion was habitually hooded on his face, and it took an effort of will to speak with him and not somehow fall under his subtle influence. Springbuck had been moved to speak up a moment before as the words of Hightower had filled him, if not with courage, then at least with
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THE DOOMFARERS OF CORAMONDE
some transient burst of outrage. But before Yardiff Bey he held his peace.
"Hightower are you," the sorcerer agreed in that voice so remote from the merely mortal, "who spurns the decisions of the Court when he so chooses. High-tower who withholds levies, contending that he mounts a more perilous watch than the rest of Coramonde. Sanctimonious Hightower, poised and ready against imaginary icemen."
" 'Imaginary,' you say?" the Duke shot back. "Lies are your nature as venom is a snake's, I say. Send any doubters out with me to rural villages to see. Something malignant is growing in Coramonde, and it wears many faces. I have seen it, I have fought it. Still it grows. Last month came a call to me from her people and I went, to find the mistress of a great estate torturing children. She'd been extracting their spleen and marrow for love potions. She had once been a friend, but I knew her no more and I slew her there myself." The Duke's palm brushed once, uneasily, across the hilt of his sword.
Fania, recovered now that Bey had intervened, soothed, "We are not unaware of these things. It has become clear to us that such incidents come at the instigation of Freegate, the so-called independent city east of the Keel of Heaven. Even now are leaders gathered in Earthf ast to discuss it, and legion musters will soon follow, for a war of defense against Freegate. We ask Hightower to look to nis own array and prepare to see the crimson tiger into battle." She waved her hand at the royal standard and smiled a lovely, truthless smile, finishing sweetly, "As he has done so bravely and so well in the past."
But the Duke was having none of that, not from anyone fair or anyone fey. "These things I talked about are not come from Freegate but from Coramonde herself. Freegate has always been circumspect of us and everyone here knows it. To blame them is a lie."
A risky accusation to say the least, Springbuck reflected. Hightower was ever the brave warrior but never the diffident diplomat. Speaking so to Fania was a far different thing from saying the same to Yardiff Bey.
From the ranks of the courtiers Ч as if on cue
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markЧstepped an elegant man in plum and amber, whom Springbuck recognized as Count Synfors.
"I would be honored to answer the Duke's insult," Synfors said. "If the coward will draw steel, I'll make my argument"
Hightower, head cocked to one side, was studying the urbane young Count with a hint of amusement. "How long," he asked, "have you been groomed for this occasion, little man? Never mind, never mind; shall we call the armigers, or shall I kill you without all that ironmongery?"
The ends of the Count's lips curled for an instant and for answer he detached from his sash a case of swords, twin rapiers decorated en suite, hilts flattened on one side so that they fit together in one sheath. Synfors took the two hilts and, with an abrupt jerk, sent the sheath flying free and held a wicked-slim weapon ready in either hand.
Unarmed, Springbuck thought for a moment to intervene but checked himself. This was a personal contest, if unorthodox, and, it seemed to,him, not to be meddled with since it had been fairly challenged and freely accepted.
Hightower tossed his cap aside, and the scrape of his sword coming clear of its scabbard was, to Springbuck's mind, a terse announcement of imminent death.
They closed upon one another with no further word, as quiet wagering began among the onlookers, who pressed inward a bit. Though Hightower was well seasoned, young Synfors was supple and generally known to be expert with his unusual blades.
They clashed for a moment, the hurried conversation of blades too quick to follow well, and were apart again. The Count had thrust with his right-hand rapier and replied to the Duke's instant parry with a second thrust from the left-hand one. Surprisingly, Hightower had managed to bring his big sword around in time to block that move too, but not in time to avoid sustaining a cut along his shoulder.
The conduct of the duel, as everyone there knew, was not according to form or custom. The inequity of weapons and the failure of the Queen to attempt mediation
10 THE DOOMFARERS OF CORAMONDE
were improprieties of the first water. But in that entire room, no one thought that the Duke would live to register a complaint, whatever the outcome of the match itself. Springbuck was certain that all of this had been forseen and that the Duke's famous temper had triggered the spontaneous-seeming contest quite in accordance with some plan.
The Prince wondered vaguely where his stepbrother was and why Strongblade wasn't present. Perhaps Fania hadn't wanted her son to be involved, fearing even Strongblade's ability to cope with the fierce Hightower. Synfors began his predatory glide again, nearing the Duke and initiating the same double-stroke attack, but suddenly found out to his brief dismay the difference between his own sportman's accomplishments and the battle skill of his opponent, the wage of a lifetime of war and drill.
Hightower took a double grip on the hand-and-a-half hilt of his sword and stepped deeply forward and to the left, windmilling the heavy bastard blade to the right. Such was the speed of the older man that Synfors missed his thrust as his point passed by his antagonist's shoulder, and such the force of the Duke's stroke that the beautiful guard of the Count's right-hand rapier was smashed, the hand beneath it broken and laid open to the bone.
Synfors screamed, dropping his right-hand sword and bringing the left up hi futile gesture. Another time, Hightower might have let him live, but there was no restraint hi him tonight. The second rapier was swept away, no more than thin procrastination, and the would-be executioner was himself dead a heartbeat later.
Fania was plainly shaken at this quick brutality, but she turned to Yardifl Bey. When she turned back to face the Court she seemed to have drawn strength and control from some quarter, and the Prince began to wonder, between Queen and sorcerer, who was subordinate to whom.
She rose to her feet, thowing back the white-furred splendor of her robe, and cried, "Murderer! This fight
Of Deaths, Of Departure 11
was not condoned; you had not my let to brawl, either one. The Count is.beyond my retribution, but I shall visit my anger twofold upon you."
Springbuck expected to hear the order go out and see deadly shafts throw back the lamplight on their way to the Duke's heart.
But instead, Fania commanded, "Archog, slay me this man." At this Archog, the largest of the ogres and the captain of them, drew his huge broadsword from its scabbard at his back and shuffled forward.
Springbuck watched in horror. The match between Hightower and Synfors had been one thing, a bout between men by challenge given and taken. The assault of Archog was something elseЧa deliberate, merciless executioner about to do his work. The Prince's impulse was to go to the Duke's side and stand with him. Yet that impulse was drained, and the heir of the Ku-Mor-Mai immobilized at the ogre's terrifying aspect. His mouth had gone dune dry and he realized that to oppose Archog or, in his killing rage, even to impede him, would mean death. What would it profit to die?
But for a scant second, Hightower tore his gaze from the creature tramping to confront him and fixed the Prince with his eye. That look said nothing of expectation or resentment; there was no bitterness because Hightower had come to help him only to lose his own life. It was, Springbuck saw in that one instant, the Duke's way of ensuring that the Prince would see and understand. It simply said, "I am Hightower. This is how I live, and how I can die, if it comes to that."
And that stark message came through so well that the Prince lurched forward to join the Duke, and hi the impact of the moment, none noticed the sob that escaped him. But he was seized from either side by the guardsmen and held fast in armored hands; in a moment the eight archers had leveled unswerving arrowheads at his breast. He stopped struggling to watch as the ogre closed with Hightower.
The Duke waited, perhaps bitter with himself for leaving his own liege men outside Earthfast; he exhibited none of the confidence he had shown with Synfors.
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THE DOOMFARERS OF CORAMONDE
He shifted his grip on his sword and, uttering a piercing war cry, threw himself forward at his new enemy, swinging a savage blow.
But Archog met the Duke's weapon with his own with such terrific energy that the man's sword broke hi two. Stunned, Hightower fell back on one knee, holding the useless quillons and stump of his blade before him as if his sword were still whole.
With a scream that had no message but animal anguish and loss, the Prince, beyond any care or caution for his own life, shook his captors loose and fumbled at the ranker's belt for his sword. The captain should have jumped back and let the archers do their work, which would have pleased his Queen well; but in the heat of the moment he instead brought down an iron-girt fist and dashed Springbuck into semiconsciousness.
Archog advanced and swung again, this time knocking aside the Duke's sword stump and beheading him. The ogre stood over his victim's body, which streamed its hot life's blood across the floor, and his bone-chilling gaze lifted slowly to Fania, no trace of elation or rancor hi it, awaiting further instruction.
Fania, whey-faced and glassy-eyed at the ghastly scene, tried to find her voice but couldn't. Again she turned to Yardiff Bey, and once more appeared to summon composure from that source.
"Take the . . . remains of the traitors away,'* Fania managed at last in a subdued tone.
Archog stooped and straightened, to move toward the portals, the Duke's body under one arm and the head cupped in the other gauntleted paw. Synfbrs' body was carried away, too. Finally the Prince was lifted by the two guardsmen.
In the whirling haze that had settled around him, Springbuck shrank back before the realization of his failure to aid Hightower as before the heat of a bonfire.
Chapter Two
This before all else: be armed.
MACHIAVELLI