"John Dalmas - Yngling 1 - The Yngling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

The Eagle warrior looked at them, his
grin widening to show a dead tooth that had turned
gray. "I see the cubs are beginning to feel like real
wolves," he said. His eyes moved to Nils Hammarson
who stood, still relaxed, a slight smile on his face.
"All but the big one, eh? A
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thrall's son I'll bet, strong as an ox and almost as
quick. Or maybe your blood runs hot, too, but you
hide it."
Nils shifted his weight easily, and his
voice was casual. "Nay, Du." For a sword apprentice
to address a warrior with the familiar pronoun
bordered on insolence. "I was memorizing your face.
The old man lying there is my kinsman, Olof
Snabbhann, and in one year I'll be wearing warrior's
braids." He paused. "Not that everyone with braids
deserves to be called warrior."
The Eagle warrior's eyes narrowed in his
darkening face and he strode toward the youth. He
aimed a fist at the blond head. But the fist that met
him was quicker; his steel-capped head snapped back
and he fell heavily in the trampled mud, his head at
an odd angle. Algott Olofson knelt by him quickly,
then rose. "You've killed him," he said gravely.
But the ting was over and crimes between
clans would not be judged again until the next year.
Therefore, Nils was free to go home. He spent his
summer as any sword apprentice would, hunting bear
and wild bulls, rowing out into the long lake to draw
in nets, and particularly training, with his ring
mates. They lifted boulders and wrestled. They swung,
parried, and thrust at shadow enemies with heavy iron
practice swords twice the weight of a war sword. They
sparred with birch swords and weighted wooden
shields, and sent arrows at staves marked with the
totems of other clans.
But if his activities were normal, the
subtler things of life weren't. Everyone knew that at
the next ting he would be judged, and when one re-
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membered this, it was sometimes hard to be at ease
with him. He could be executed. Or he could be
labeled a renegade, to live alone in the forest
without clan protection. In that case Eagle warriors
would surely hunt him down and kill him. The least
sentence possible was banishment.
Nonetheless, Nils Hammarson seemed about
as always-relaxed, mild-spoken and observant. He had
changed mainly in one respect. Before, in sparring,