"Flint, Kenneth C - Gods of Eire 03 - Master of the Sidhe UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Kenneth C)

It was an odd collection of people who now approached this goal, although the couple who led it did little to create this impression. They seemed a quite pleasant, harmless sort of pair. The young man was cleanly and boldly featured, his fair hair swept casually back in a thick wave, while the woman had an open, guileless face accentuated by large, bright green eyes and a fine dusting of freckles across her small nose and high cheeks. There was nothing about them to suggest that he was Lugh Lamfada, Champion of the de Dananns and she the veteran warrior called Aine.

It was the three who followed them who created the air of strangeness.

One of this trio was the Dagda, most powerful of the de Danann's warriors, He was an enormous man, with a body hard as bog oak and a face like a rocky cliff softened and seamed by years of Eire's rain,

Beside him strode Morrigan, another woman, though this was barely discernible. Her lean body was closely furled in a black cloak, and her glowing blue-black hair was pulled back tightly, emphasizing the gauntness of her face.

On the Dagda's other side loped the one known as Gilla the Clown. A baggy, battered cloak of faded stripes billowed around his long, loose-jointed frame. Outsize shoes flapped loudly on his feet. A tangle of beard and hair masked all of his face save for his eyes, his nearly constant grin, and the tip of a long nose that jutted from the growth as if striving desperately for air.

As the five drew nearer to the Fomor city, the patch of linen began to resolve itself into separate buildings, tiny squares of dirty white set in rows, dividing the whole area into exact sections. All was shrouded by a thick yellow-gray haze that hung low above it.

Something swooped suddenly down from the sky and directly at the travelers. In a flurry of wings it swiftly checked itself and settled to a landing on the arm Lugh lifted toward it. It was a small falcon, and it ruffled its feathers in a nervous gesture as it turned a sharp gaze toward the young warrior.

"I've been over it, and I don't like it at all." the birr!

6 MASTER OF THE SIDHE

announced in a sharp, uneasy voice. "The look of the place is bad enough. But the smell!"

This talking bird was in fact a Pooka, one of that extraordinary family of beings who could assume any shape at will except that of a human.

Lugh had to admit the Pooka was certainly right. Even at this distance the breeze off the sea managed to waft the awful stench of the city up to them. It was most reminiscent of something long dead left under a hot sun.

"I don't much like it either, Shaglan," Lugh told the Pooka firmly, "but it's my feeling that we must do this. We can't let the bloodshed continue if there is any possibility this can be settled peacefully. If Bres is willing to talk with us, we have to try convincing him to surrender."

"Well, it's the maddest thing we've ever done," the Dagda growled. "And going in there without my war-ax, I feel like a naked babe in a wolves' den!"

He wasn't alone in that feeling. None of the party carried sword, spear, ax, shield, or any other weapon, as a condition of the truce with the Fomor.

The outer limits of the city were just ahead now. The roadway they followed entered it through a break in a row of close-set square buildings. At their approach, a group of figures moved into this opening and stopped, blocking the way.

"Our welcoming party," Lugh commented, examining them with interest. "Who are they?"

"It's the Serpent's Head Clan," the Dagda supplied. "One of the hardest in the Fomor companies. Very difficult to

kill."

They were all tall and cylindrical in body, well-muscled, and wiry in build. The blood relationship was clear in the facial characteristics that had given them their name. Their heads were flat and broad, nearly without chins or foreheads. Most were bald. Their eyes protruded from the sides of their heads and their noses were only thin, moist, pulsing slits above wide, lax mouths.

"A lovely family, they are," Gilla told the Dagda cheerily, drawing only a glare from his large companion.

As the little band came to a halt, one of this clan moved forward. One side of his face was covered by a scabrous mass of dead white tissue, leaving him only one eye. But this protruded so far from his head that he could direct it forward

THE STRONGHOLD 7

or backward. He lifted a heavy, barbed spear before him and challenged the arrivals in a low, lisping voice.

"Are you the ones come to see King Bres then?"