"Raymond E. Feist - Riftwar Legends - Murder In LaMut" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

in their purses, any more than they had for their cloaks. Durine and his two
friends had more than a few coins of their own secreted about their persons -
sewn into hidden pockets in the lining of their tunics, or the hems of their
cloaks, in purses worn under their clothes, bound in shrunken rawhide, so that
they wouldn't clink. A nobleman could put his wealth into a vault or
strongroom, and hire armed men to watch it; a merchant could put his wealth
into trade items that couldn't be easily walked off with; a wizard could leave
his wealth in plain sight and trust that where sanity and self-interest
wouldn't protect it from thieves, the spells on it could and would - Durine
had seen a man who had tried, once, to burgle a sleeping magician's retreat.
Or, at least, what had been a man ...

But a mercenary soldier could either carry his wealth with him or spend it,
and Durine didn't have a good explanation for what a detailed search would
reveal in his possession right now.

A nobleman would have just brushed past the two men - for they wouldn't have
dared to stand in his way - but Durine was no nobleman. Besides, the number of
people Durine would willingly allow within easy stabbing range of his broad
back were very few, and two grey shapes in the dark were hardly likely
candidates.
 One on two? That wasn't the way he had planned to die, but so be it, if that
was necessary, although he had taken on two men at a time many times before,
without getting killed. Yet.

It was getting to be too cold and wet and miserable a day to live, anyway.

He pretended to stagger on the rough wood while his right hand reached
inside his cloak to his nearest knife. They would hardly give him time to draw
his sword, after all. At the movement, each man took a step back.

'Wait-' one started.

'Easy, man,' the other said, his hands outstretched, palms out in an
unmistakable sign of peace. 'The Swordmaster says he just wants to talk to
you,' he said. 'It's too cold and mean a night to die, and that goes as much
for me as it does for you.'

'And big as he is, it would probably take both of us to put him down, if we
had to,' the first man muttered.

Durine grunted, but kept his thoughts to himself, as usual. It would
probably take more than the two of them. It would also, at the very least,
take the two others who had come out of the darkness behind Durine, the ones
he wasn't supposed to have noticed.
But bragging was something he left to others.

'Let's go,' he said. 'It isn't getting any warmer out here.'

He straightened. But he kept a hand near a knife. Just in case.