"John DeChancie - Castle 04 - Castle War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dechancie John)
Castle War
тАЬJust our luck if he dies. IтАЩve got a good mind to тАФ тАЭ
The prisoner kicked out and connected with a solar plexus. One Guardsman doubled over. Then,
pivoting quickly, he swung his manacled fists around and clouted the other alongside the head.
Both men went down, and he ran.
He dashed left at the next intersection, having a certain destination in mind. It was one of the castleтАЩs
lesser known aspects, and if he could get through it, he could lose himself in dense forest. He knew a
cave not far away where he could hide.
Shouts echoing behind him, he willed what was left of his strength into his legs. He lurched left at the
next crossing passageway, ran, turned right, ran, then bore right again.
He burst into a spacious room. In the darkness to the rear lay the arched entrance to a small adjoining
chamber, which he made for directly. Once through the archway, he halted and gasped in dismay.
There was supposed to be an aspect here, a magical doorway to another world. Instead, there lay before
him another long, nondescript corridor, of which there were countless thousands in the castle.
Perilous, he had a keen sense of direction and layout. One needed such talents in the vast labyrinth of the
castle.
The magical doorway was clearly gone. Aspects were known to disappear on occasion, but this
particular one was extraordinarily stable, or had been since he had taken up residence in the castle.
Rotten luck to have it vanish when he needed it most. Double bad luck to have picked this one when
there were two or three others close by that would have served in a pinch. But this world had offered a
forest to hide in; the others provided less ideal cover.
Footsteps closed outside; too late to make a dash for one of the alternate escape routes. He was cut off.
He bolted forward. The only choice was to keep running.
But he knew it was only a matter of time before he was chased down. The alert would go out.
His one chance was to make it to one of the unstable areas of the castle, where wild aspects flickered in
and out of existence, where doors opened to anywhere, sometimes to oblivion. But even oblivion was
preferable to the refined diversions that IncarnadineтАЩs torturers had in store for him.
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Castle War
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