"David Gemmel - Sipstrassi Tales 03 - Bloodstone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

during his search stopping to fight brigands, tame towns, kill the ungodly. Riding endlessly through the
lands, welcome only when his guns were needed, urged to move on when the killing was done.
Isis pulled back once more, dismayed and depressed - not just by the memories of constant death and
battle, but by the anguish of the man himself. The shy, sensitive child had become the man of violence,
feared and shunned, each killing adding yet another layer of ice upon his soul. Again she merged.
She/he was being attacked, men running from the shadows. Gunfire. A sound behind her/him. Cocking
the pistol Isis/Shannow spun and fired in one motion. A child flung back, his chest torn open. Oh God!
Oh God! Oh God!
Isis clawed her way free of the memory, but did not fully withdraw. Instead she floated upwards,
allowing time to pass, halting only when the Jerusalem Man rode up to the farm of Donna Taybard. This
was different. Here was love.
The wagons were moving, and Isisi/Shannow rode out from them, scouting the land, heart full of joy and
the promise of a better tomorrow. No more savagery and death. Dreams of farming and quiet
companionship. Then came the Hellborn!
Isis withdrew and stood. 'You poor, dear man,' she whispered, brushing her hand over the sleeping
man's brow. 'I'll come back tomorrow.'
Outside the wagon Dr Meredith approached her. 'What did you find out?' he asked.
'He is no danger to us,' she answered.
*
The young man was tall and slender, a shock of unruly black hair cut short above the ears but growing
long over the nape of his neck. He was riding an old, sway-backed mare up and over the Gap, and
stared with the pleasure of youth at the distant horizons, where the mountains reared up to challenge the
sky. Nestor Garrity was seventeen, and this was an adventure. The Lord alone knew how rare
adventures were in Pilgrim's Valley. His hand curled round the pistol butt at his hip, and he allowed the
fantasies to sweep through his mind. He was no longer a clerk at the timber company. No, he was a
Crusader hunting the legendary Laton Duke and his band of brigands. It didn't matter that Duke was
feared as the deadliest pistoleer this side of the Plague Lands. For the hunter was Nestor Garrity, lethal
and fast, the bane of war-makers everywhere, adored by women, respected and admired by men.
Adored by women . . .
Nestor paused in his fantasy, wondering what it would be like to be adored by women. He'd walked out
once with Ezra Feard's daughter, Mary, taken her to the Summer Dance. She'd led him outside into the
moonlight and flirted with him.
'Should have kissed her,' he thought. 'Should have done some damn thing!' He blushed at the memory.
The dance had turned into a nightmare when she walked off with Samuel Klares. They'd kissed. Nestor
saw them down by the creek. Now she was married to him, and had just delivered her first child.
The old mare almost stumbled on the scree slope. Jerked from his thoughts, Nestor steered her down the
incline.
The fantasies loomed back into his mind. He was no longer Nestor Garrity, the fearless Crusader, but
Jon Shannow, the famed Jerusalem Man, seeking the fabled city, and with no time for women - much as
they adored him. Nestor narrowed his eyes, and lifted his hat from where it hung at his back. Settling it
into place, he turned up the collar of his coat and sat straighter in the saddle.
Jon Shannow would never slouch. He pictured two brigands riding from behind the boulders. In his
mind's eye he could see the fear on their faces. They went for their guns. Nestor's hand snapped down.
The pistol sight caught on the tip of his holster, twisting the weapon from his hands. It fell to the scree.
Carefully Nestor dismounted and retrieved the weapon.
The mare, pleased to be relieved of the boy's weight, walked on. 'Hey, wait!' called Nestor, scrambling
towards her. But she ambled on, and the dejected youngster followed her all the way to the bottom,
where she stopped to crop at the dry grass. Then Nestor remounted.
One day I'll be a Crusader, he thought. I'll serve the Deacon and the Lord. He rode on.
Where was the Preacher? It shouldn't take this long to find him. The tracks were easy to follow to the