"Peter David - Sir Apropos 01 - Sir Apropos Of Nothing" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

was a wide world out there beyond the kingdom of Isteria, and I couldn't help but feel that there had to
be sufficient room in it for Apropos. Granted, my flight would be an irretrievable besmirching of my
honor. To hell with that. Honor did not pay bills, nor keep one warm at night. Apropos would disappear;
I would take up a new identity. It wasn't as if the one that I had was all that wonderful anyway. Start a
new life, learn a trade, perhaps become a knight eventually somewhere else. Who knew? Perhaps, at
some point in the future, Granite and I would meet on the battlefield. We would face each other,
glowering...and then, with any luck, I'd shoot him with an arrow from a safe distance.

All this occurred to me in a moment's time.

And then Granite said, "I don't care."

That was all the warning I had before the sword swung down toward me.

Fortunately it was warning enough as I rolled out of the way. The sword came down with such force
that it clanged into the floor and bit right into the paving with that jagged edge.

Rosalie shrieked. So did I. Even as I did so, however, I lurched to my feet, pushing up with my good
leg. I was still clutching the sheet in my hand, and I threw it over his head to obscure his vision. At that
moment Granite struggled with his sword, trying to extricate it from its state of being temporarily
immobilized, and he sent up a caterwauling that was a fearsome thing to hear. So infuriated was he that
he had practically lost capacity for speech, instead generating a sort of inarticulate grunting.

Picking a general area of the sheet that seemed to represent his head, I drew back a fist and struck as
hard as I could. My upper-arm strength, as noted, is somewhat formidable. I hit him on what felt like the
side of his head, probably causing a profound ringing in his ears. But by that time he had a firmer grip on
his sword, and he ripped it from the floor and swung it about so that it shredded the sheet, which fell to
ribbons around him.

Rosalie was shrieking his name, trying to get his attention. That probably wasn't the wisest course. He
seemed ready to decapitate her as soon as look at her, but at the moment he appeared more interested in
getting to me. He swung again, cleaving straight down once more. Apparently he didn't have an
abundance of moves, but the few he did have were devastating if they happened to connect. I lunged
onto the bed, barely avoiding the sweep. Rosalie adroitly vaulted over me as I rolled toward the other
side, landing on my feet but not smoothly, and stumbling back.

He came after me, his eyes wild, his face turning as red as my hair. He didn't seem in the mood to
reason.

I heard a pounding at the door. The sounds of commotion had started to attract attention. The door,
however, was bolted. People were calling Granite's name, asking if anything was wrong. Granite didn't
bother to respond. I made a motion toward the doorway, and he leaped to intercept. He moved with the
speed of a damned unicorn, cutting off my possible escape route. A sneer of contempt was curling his
upper lip.

I backpedaled, headed back toward the bed. Symbolic that it should begin and end there. Rosalie
had wisely vacated the bed by that point, grabbing a dressing gown from her wardrobe and tossing it
over her nakedness. "Milord, stop! Stop!" she said over and over. He seemed disinclined to attend to her
wishes, however.