"Peter David - Sir Apropos 02 - The Woad To Wuin" - читать интересную книгу автора (David Peter)

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 me--in every sense of the word--into
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 which--for reasons I won't go into here--did 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 na├пvet├й 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 "weaver," as her type is also known, short for
"magic weaver") who called herself "Sharee," which may or may not have been her true name.

I never found out whether Runcible sent his knights after me to bring me back. On the one hand, his
pride was no doubt hurt; on the other hand, he and his queen--and certainly his daughter--might have
been well-pleased to be rid of me. If they had been determined to hunt me down, it likely would not have
been all that difficult. My ears tended to stick out a bit too much, and my flaming red hair was long and