"David Gemmell - Druss 01 - Druss the Legend" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

enemies all around him. Six men were dead, and that terrible axe was still
slashing left and right . . . Then a lance had been thrust into Bardan's
throat. Blood bubbled from the wound but Bardan slew the lance wielder before
falling to his knees. A man ran in behind him and delivered a terrible blow to
Bardan's neck.
From his hiding-place high in the oak the fourteen-
year-old Bress had watched his father die, and heard one of the killers say:
The old wolf is dead - now where is the pup?'
He had stayed in the tree all night, high above the
headless body of Bardan. Then, in the cold of the dawn he had climbed down and
stood by the corpse. There was no sadness, only a terrible sense of relief
combined with guilt. Bardan was dead: Bardan the Butcher. Bardan the Slayer.
Bardan the Demon.
He had walked sixty miles to a settlement, and there
had found employment, apprenticed to a carpenter. But just as he was settling
down, the past came back to torment him when a travelling tinker recognised
him: he was the son of the Devil! A crowd gathered outside the carpenter's
shop, an angry mob armed with clubs and stones.
Bress had climbed from the rear window and fled from
the settlement. Three times during the next five years he had been forced to
run - and then he had met Alithae.
Fortune smiled on him then and he remembered Alithae's
father, on the day of the wedding, approaching him and offering him a goblet
of wine. 'I know you have suffered, boy,' said the old man. 'But I am not one
who believes that a father's evil is visited upon the souls of his children. I
know you, Bress. You are a good man.'
Aye, thought Bress, as he sat by the hearth, a good
man.
Lifting the glove he kissed it softly. Alithae had
been wearing it when the three men from the south had arrived at the
settlement where Bress and his wife and new son had made their homes. Bress
had a small but thriving business making brooches and rings and necklets for
the wealthy. He was out walking one morning, Alithae beside him carrying the
babe.
'It's Bardan's son!' he heard someone shout and he
glanced round. The three riders had stopped their horses, and one of the men
was pointing at him; they spurred their mounts and rode at him. Alithae,
struck by a charging horse, fell heavily, and Bress had leapt at the rider,
dragging him from the saddle. The other men hurled themselves from their
saddles. Bress struck left and right, his huge fists clubbing them to the
ground.
As the dust settled he turned back to Alithae. . . .
Only to find her dead, the babe crying beside her.
From that moment he lived like a man with no hope. He
rarely smiled and he never laughed.
The ghost of Bardan was upon him, and he took to
travelling, moving through the lands of the Drenai with his son beside him.
Bress took what jobs he could find: a labourer in Drenan, acarpenter in
Delnoch, a bridge-builder in Mashrapur, a horse-handler in Corteswain. Five
years ago he had wed a farmer's daughter named Patica - a simple lass, plain