"David Freer - The Forlorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Freer Dave)

"What've you got there, gutter rats?" The voice was coarse, adult and slightly slurred with alcohol.
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The advance of the ragged gang stopped. "Piss off, guardsman, if you want to stay healthy." The rat
pack's leader was wary, but defiant.

"Huh! Hear that mates! The rats are worried 'bout my health!"

Another rough voice responded. "Soon have their own to worry about, heh heh!" There was the steely
rasp of a sword being drawn.

Keilin knew this was no rescue for him. The city guardsmen protected those who paid their dues. To this
brethren of thugs he was as much of a louse on the city's underbelly as his attackers were. The dead end
the gang had caught him in had now become their trap, too.

"Wait a minute, Sill. Let's see what they've got first. We might even want it instead of a rat." There was a
nasal quality to the voice that failed to overlay the lust. With a sharp metallic click the slide of the dark
lantern was pulled back. Light spilled out. It revealed four boys in tattered clothing remnants. They were
stunted and malnourished, but visibly between the ages of fifteen and the wispy first traces of beard. Their
victim was smaller and younger still.

The light was directed at the victim. "Ooh! Pretty one, isn't he!" The nasal voice thickened. Here, in the
deep south, a pale skin, green eyes and red hair were rare, as was the hawksbill nose in the middle of it
all. Enough of the light washed back for Keilin to see the holder. His belly crawled. Guard-Captain
Kemp. It was widely rumored that Kemp got his kicks from pain . . . and that his young victims ended up
dead . . . much later.

"Go on, rats. Get lost. It's your lucky night." As the ragged figures scampered past the guardsmen, Keilin
saw the Guard-Captain set the dark lantern down and start fumbling with the buttons on his pants. "Hold
him for me, boys. Looks like this one'll fight back." Something in his voice indicated that this would
simply add spice.

Keilin struggled vainly against the big hands that held him. He was wild with fear, into the realms of
panic, too far gone to feel pain from the sudden bitter cold of the jewel on his chest.

"Holy shit!" The rough hands loosened their grip on his arms. Keilin writhed free, pulling up his trousers.
Whatever this was, he was going to run, and he'd not get far with them around his ankles. He heard the
scraping sound of swords being drawn. Looking up, he saw just how futile this act was. In the lantern
light the bull was huge, filling most of the alley. Living in the gut of the city, Keilin barely knew what the
animal was, but hearing the beast's bellow, seeing those long horns lowering, he was sure it was very,
very angry.

The city guardsman nearest the beast knew equally little about the temper of an old swamp aurochs. If
he'd been from the wide, wild marshes of Vie'en, five hundred leagues to the southeast, where the vast
beast had been grazing peacefully in the pale morning a few moments before, the fat one would never
have been so stupid. But the nearest thing to this beast he'd ever met was an elderly milch cow. So he