"David,.Peter.-.Sir.Apropos.2.-.Woad.To.Wuin" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

David Peter - Sir Apropos 02 - The Woad to Wuin






Book One
Fate Accompli



Chapter 1
The One Thing

It is important you understand that I do not like taking people's lives. I have
done it several times but derived no pleasure from it. Furthermore it has always
been in self-defense, and, as suspect as it may sound, it has usually come about
as a result of someone inadvertently throwing themselves on some sort of sharp
implement I happened to be pointing in his, her, or its direction. I have never,
however, been the sort to start a fight when it could be avoided . . . or, for
that matter, failed to run from it if remotely possible. Anyone who has read my
previous chronicles of my "adventures," of which this is a continuation, is
already rather painfully aware of that.
So you will understand the distress I felt when I was standing there in the
middle of an otherwise lovely glade, on a fairly crisp and yet invigorating day,
staring in dismay at the hairy-footed dwarf that I had unintentionally killed. A
death which would unexpectedly thrust meЧin every sense of the wordЧinto an
escapade that was alternately the most exhilarating, and most terrifying, that I
had ever experienced. And considering what I had experienced previous to that
point, that is saying some.
For those who are new to what can only in the broadest and most ironic terms be
referred to as my hero's journey, I shall tell you as simply as possible what
you need to know in order to understand me. (Indeed, I should observe that if
you are interested in my life, you may very well lack sufficient brain power to
comprehend all but the most minimal of explanations.)
My name is Apropos, occasionally referred to as "Apropos of Nothing" due to my
lowly birth and lack of . . . well . . . anything, really, that could be
considered valuable. Of late I was dubbed Sir Apropos, still of Nothing, an
honor whichЧfor reasons I won't go into hereЧdid not quite work out. Suffice to
say that one whose patrimony consists of a group of knights raping my tavern
wench mother, providing me an existence of endless betrayal and deprivation
which served to give me a somewhat cynical, shall we say, view of the world . .
. well, one such as that does not end up living happily ever after. I was
foolish enough to briefly entertain the notion, and paid severely for that
unbecoming naяvetщ by winding up tossed in a dungeon barely twenty-four hours
after being knighted, which was something of a record at the court of King
Runcible in the state of Isteria.
Once I managed to escape the dungeon through means literally too ludicrous to go
into here, I hit the road in the company of a rather vexing young sorceress (or