"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 02 - The Dragon Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

The end result of all this was that, although the day might have been a little cool for Jim in the kind of
clothes he would have been used to wearing in the twentieth century, it was perhaps even a bit on the
warm side for him under these conditions. The district was in the English Midlands and already had more
than a foot into spring.

Consequently, JimтАЩs spirts rose. What if he was indeed turning into a dragon unexpectedly from time to
time? Carolinus would be able to tell him why and set the matter right. The closer he got to the Tinkling
Water where Carolinus lived, the more peaceful and cheerful he became. His spirits had lightened to the
point where he was almost on the verge of breaking into song, so good was he feeling.

Just at that moment, however, he rounded a curve in the forest track that was the road; and saw,
crossing ahead of him, a family of wild boar; the sow first, followed by half a dozen young ones.
Meanwhile, fecing in JimтАЩs direction almost as if waiting for him, was the father of the family, the boar
himself.

The thought of song vanished from JimтАЩs mind, and he reined his horse to a halt.

He was not unarmed. He had learned not to be in the long winter sessions with Sir Brian, as he practiced
with that good knight at using the weapons of the period-and picked them up remarkably well and
swiftly, which was not surprising, seeing that Jim was a natural athlete, having been a AA-class volleyball
player back in his own twentieth-century Earth. But here in a fourteenth-century world it was not wise for
a single person or even a group of persons to go unarmed any place. Outside of wild boar, like the one
confronting him right now, there were as well unknown wolves, bears, outlaws, unfriendly neighbors; and
any of a number of other inimical possibilities.

Consequently, Jim was wearing his regular broadsword, and the smaller of his two shields hung from his
saddle. In addition to that, a long poignard in its sheath balanced the sword by hanging down on the other
side of his belt-a daggerlike instrument with a blade some eleven inches long. However, none of these
were ideal tools for discouraging an attack by a large and well-tusked boar, like the one he saw before
him.

Not that a boar like that was likely to be discouraged, even by a knight in full plate armor, with spear.
Once a boar made up his mind to charge, as Aargh had once said, that was about all he would be able to
think about until everything was over.

There were other weapons more suited to handling a boar than those Jim wore. One was a boar spear,
which was a short, but stoutly built spear, made mainly of metal, so that the boar could not bite its shaft in
half. It had a crosspiece some three feet behind its wickedly tined head. The purpose of the crosspiece
was to keep the boar from charging all the way up the spear, ignoring it completely; and going to work
with his tusks on the man who held the spear. Even May HeatherтАЩs battleaxe would have been welcome
at the moment.

Jim sat and waited. He hoped that the family, consisting of the sow and the younger boars, would vanish
into the woods on the far side of the road; and that the boar himself would turn to follow them.
Nonetheless Jim was conscious of feeling uneasy. His horse was definitely uneasy. Jim wished he could
afford a horse like Sir BrianтАЩs-which was a highly trained war-horse, with as much instinct to attack on
sight as the boar had; and trained to fight anything before it with teeth and hooves.

But horses like that were worth a young fortune; and while Jim had a certain amount of magic credit to
his name, plus the castle, his supply of ready coin was small.