"Thieves World v2 7 - 1988 - Dagger - D Drake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

So he was in Sanctuary again, where no one was safe; and a man he didn't know
had just identified him.

Star put a hand on her uncle's elbow, to reassure Samlor of her presence and the
fact that she understood the tension.

The trio of punks by the door glanced sidelong with greasy eyes. They were
street toughs, too young to have an identity beyond the gang membership they
proclaimed with matching yellow bandanas and high boots that made sense only for
horsemen. They were dangerous. Like baboons, they stank, yammered, and let
vicious hostility toward outsiders serve in situations where humans would have
found intelligence to be useful.

Four soldiers, out of uniform but obvious from the way their hair was cut short
to fit beneath helmets, sat at a table near the bar with a pimp and a woman. The
pimp gave Samlor and the situation an appraising look. The woman eyed the
caravan master blearily, because he happened to be standing where her eyes were
more or less focused.

And the soldiers, after momentary alertness at the possibility of a brawl,
resumed their negotiations regarding a price for the woman to go down on all
four of them in the alley outside.

There were a dozen other people in the tavern, besides the slope-shouldered
tapster and the bar maidЧthe only other woman presentЧwho slid between tables,
too tired to slap at the hands that groped her and too jaded to care. The
drinkers, solitary or in pairs, were nondescript though clothed within a fair
range of wealth and national origin.

4 David Drake

They could be identified as criminals only because they chose to gather here.

"I don't need a dagger," said Samlor, releasing Star to free his left hand as
his right lifted the wedge of his own belt knife a few inches up in its sheath.
"I have my own."

There was nothing fartcy about Samlor's weapon. The blade was a foot long with
two straight edges. The metal had no ornamentation beyond the unsharpened relief
cuts which would permit the user to short-grip the weapon with an index finger
over the crosshilt. It was forged of a good grade of steelЧthough again, nothing
exceptional.

Recently, a few blades of Enlibar steel had appeared. These were worked from
iron alloyed with a blue-green ore of copper which had been cursed by earth
spirits, kobolds. The ore could be smelted only with magical means, and it was
said to give an exceptional toughness to sword blades.

Samlor had been interested in the reports, but he'd survived as long as he had
by sticking to what he was sure would work. He left the experiments with kobold