"Lynn Flewelling - Raven's Cut" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flewelling Lynn)

to hunt in the snow. I never saw so much a spot of blood on him.
His hands tightened around my neck, and he slowly pulled me up until I was balancing on my toes.
"How old are you now, Skut?" he asked, glaring at me with those black eyes.
I don't know how I had the wit to lie, but I did. I shaved a full year and a half off and swore up and down
I was still twelve. He must have seen the new beard coming in on my cheeks; Bilairy knows he was close
enough, but suddenly he eased up and I was his sweet boy again. He petted me and chaffed my neck, all
apologetic.
"Why?" I blurted out, starting to cry as I looked over at what was left of Master.
He looked so surprised. "I like to, Skut. You know that," he says.
"But why eat their guts?"
All of a sudden he was angry. "Not their guts, boy. Their souls! You have to suck out the souls." Saying
this, he stroked my hair, his fingers all sticky with blood while I thought of those snuffling noises he used
to make over the bodies, and how wrong I'd been yet again.
For a moment he seemed his old self, all gentle and kind as he wound a strand of my hair around one
bloody finger and said, "And you have to remember them, every one of them."
I thought just for a second I might reason with him, but he grabbed my throat again. About then I
remembered that my knife was still in his room, lost among his remembrance tokens. His hands closed
tighter this time, the mad darkness back in his eyes. "Twelve, Skut? Not quite so young as that, I
thinkтАФ"
I don't remember the others bursting into the room, only being able to draw breath again. I don't
remember much at all the rest of that spring, not even laying poor Master to rest, though they tell me I
wailed like a woman until they dosed me with sleeping draughts.
So I don't know why a roomful of the best assassins in the Three Lands couldn't bring down one man, or
how Raven escaped. But he did. With Master killed and the whole city talking about the murders,
everyone figured he'd left Rhiminee, maybe even left the country. Gone back to wherever he came from.
I did, too. But all the same, once my mind began to clear I kept waking up in the dark, thinking there was
a big hand on my throat and a voice by my ear, whispering, "Not quite so young as that, sweet boy."
Night after night it happened, sometimes, until I hated going to sleep.
After that, with Master and Raven both gone, it felt like I was numb drunk inside, but still moving around
like my regular self anyway. I stayed on at the house, and kept at my work as well as I was able.
Then came a summer night when I heard that voice awake, coming to me from a dark alleyway down by
the harbor. Only this time I think I heard, "Not so young at all, sweet Skut."
Let me tell you, I ran! And when I finally fetched up, I found myself a good long way outside Rhiminee,
so I kept on going.
For a moment the only sounds were those of the waves and the crackling fire. Kif smoke hung heavy
over the circle of men, but no one was dozing.
"How can you call this creature an assassin?" Zaghar finally demanded. "He was a lunatic, a monster, and
a careless one, at that!"
Mijar gazed up at the thin crescent moon that was rising overhead. "What is an assassin? You and I, we
do it for pay. We earn our gold and spend it on pleasures. For Raven, killing was the pleasure. How
many times did he tell me outright, 'I like to kill'? He killed for the sake of it, not caring if he got paid or
caught or praised. Master said it best; he was an artist.
"And I'll tell you something, else. All these miles and years away, gods help me, I still hear him now and
then in the darkness, whispering to me. All these years, and I'm still standing there with those hands
around my neck, knowing I'm about to die. Whatever else he was, Raven was the best snuffer I ever
knew. And I hope never to meet his like again."