"Flint, Kenneth C - Gods of Eire 01 - The Riders of the Sidhe UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Kenneth C)

"No ties of blood could make you more a mother to me," he cried. "You're the only family I have. All I love. I won't leave you!"

In despair she searched for the words that would make him go. She could find none.

She moved close and looked sorrowfully into his eyes.

"I love you as well," she told him gently. "And as if you were my son. Bemember that."

She swung back her arm and, with a skillfully placed uppercut, dropped Lugh where he stood.

8

THE RIDERS OF THE SIDHE

She stooped to check him and nodded with satisfaction. He was unhurt and merely stunned by the blow. Briskly she went to work, calling a nearby warrior to her.

Together they lifted the unconscious boy and started down the narrow stairway. The sound of battle dimmed as they spiraled down, through the wall, into a fissure in the cliff-face below. As they descended, a growing sound of rhythmic thunder echoed up to them. It was the sea.

At the bottom of the stairs a rough-hewn passageway opened onto a tiny scrap of shore, sheltered by a cave worn in the rocks. She and the warrior readied the small boat hidden there, raised its sail and set its tiller to take it toward the east.

The whole cliff above them groaned, the solid rock of it fracturing from another powerful blast. Fine rock showered into the water beyond the cave's mouth. More fell from cracks that opened in the cave itself. The boat had to be gotten clear!

"Hurry!" she said. "Get him in!"

They lifted and rolled the boy into the boat. There was no time for ceremony here. Taillta breathed a silent prayer for his survival as she and the warrior heaved the boat out to sea with all their strength.

It floated out sluggishly, its little headway slowed by the incoming waves. As it hung there, drifting just beyond the cave's protecting overhang, another massive blow struck the cliff above. Larger rocks plunged from the riven face into the sea. Two boulders bracketed the tiny boat, rocking it like a shred of bark.

She drew her breath in fright. It would be caught there. Crushed. He would be killed after all!

"Manannan, help us!" she shouted to the sea. "He's all that's left to us!"

The boat, perhaps pushed by the waves raised by the fallen rocks, moved forward. It cleared the cliff and the sheltering rocks and a breeze caught at it, pulling it out.

Once more the force, like a giant hammer, slammed against the cliff. With protesting rumbles, it shifted in its ancient bed. The whole structure of the cliff-face was battered to a fragile point, ready to collapse. And, under its base, the little cave began to give way from the pressure above. Cracks seamed its water-smoothed sides like a crushed egg. They

THE SEA GOD W

widened rapidly, broken rock falling from them in a continuous hail. "My Queen, we must go back!" the warrior cried.

The boat was well away now, skimming out over the waves at an ever-increasing speed. There was no more that she

could do.

Abruptly she turned away and ran to the stairway, the warrior close behind. But he didn't make it. With a roar the cave's roof gave way all at once. The avalanche of stone caught him, drove him down and buried him.

She hesitated and looked back, but he was gone. The delay nearly killed her too. For even the stairs began to give way as she started up. The tight spiral seemed to fold down into itself, almost to be sucked down, each step collapsing, crumbling away nearly under her feet.

She ran upward desperately, just ahead of the void which opened below and chewed upward at the stone, threatening to swallow her as well. Her legs ached with the climb, and if she slowed for an instant she knew she would be gone.