"Evans,.Linda.-.Sleipnir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

would a god do if he called it in and I couldn't pay?

Well-l-l, either way it couldn't hurt to just cover my betsЧwhich was,
after all, the reason I was out here, and not sleeping late. At least
Gary hadn't laughed at me.

A few minutes later he found the spot we'd been looking for, an
enormous oak tree that looked old and twisted enough to have
seen the Germanic tribes sweep the Romans before them on their
drive south. Well, maybe not that oldЧbut it might have been old
enough actually to have had sacrifices made to Odin in it. How long
did an oak tree live?

Gooseflesh crawled along my back. I shook myself mentally and
hastily removed the bayonet from its wrappings and steel sheath. I
shucked off my heavy jacket and handed it to Gary, and shivered in
the cold air as I rolled up my sleeve. Holding out my arm, I firmly
took hold of the bayonet's grip and drew the edge of the blade
lightly along the inside of my forearm.

I suppressed a gasp as the cold steel opened my skin. As blood
dripped down my wrist and fingers to puddle on the frozen ground,
I said, "May it please the one-eyed god, the Valfather who sits in
Hlidskjalf, where he sees and understands all: this offering of a
new-blooded steel blade is given in fulfillment of my own oath
given in promise of blood."

I'd memorized the words in German, having looked up some of
them to be sure. After I finished speaking them, I knelt at the base
of the tree and drove the blade up to its grip into the hard ground. I
rose then, and found Gary standing behind me. Weak winter
sunlight turned his sandy hair to gold, while I shivered in shadows
under the gnarled old tree. His eyes had a faraway look. I
wondered what he was thinking. Or dreaming . . .

I wasn't sure why, but the moment reminded me of Hohenfels,
when we'd been out one damp and shivery late autumn day, on a
week-long field problem. Gary and I had been ordered to secure
an observation post on one of the hills, so we dug inЧand
discovered it wasn't a hill at all. Under the moss and leaves and
gnarled tree roots there were crumbled blocks of stone.

"Holy Mother of Odin," Gary had whispered into the silence. "It's a
burial mound, RB."

"I didn't think they were found this far south."

"They aren't."

I don't know why we whispered; but we did.