"David Gemmell - Rigante 2 - Midnight Falcon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

Parax knew them both. The girl was his dead wife, Tae, the man his stepfather, Ruathain.
'You broke your promise, my husband,' said the ghost of Tae.
Connavar bowed his head. 'Oh, Tae,' he said, 'I am so ashamed.'
'Will you still take me riding?'
Connavar gave out a groan and fell to his knees. Parax stood silently by, knowing the cause of the king's
grief. He had promised to ride with Tae to a distant lake, but on his way home had met with a woman he had
once loved. Arian had held to him, and he had bedded her. Hours later, upon his return to Old Oaks, he
discovered that Tae had ridden out with Ruathain and had been killed during a surprise attack by men who had a
blood feud with his stepfather. Connavar remained on his knees, head bowed. The giant figure of Ruathain
loomed over him. 'Family is everything, Conn. I thought I taught you that.'
'You did, Big Man. I never forgot it. I have looked after Wing and Bran and Mam.'
'And Bane?'
Connavar's face grew angry. 'I regret that. But I could not bear to see Arian again. My lust for her killed Tae -
and destroyed my life!'
'You made a mistake, Conn. All men do. But Bane was blameless, and he has grown to manhood without a
father. He watched his mother, grief-stricken and broken, fade away and die lonely. He deserved better from you,
Conn. You should have acknowledged him. It is not as if there was any doubt. He looks like you - even down to
the eyes of green and gold. And because you shunned him all men shunned him.'
The dream was terribly real and Parax wanted to reach out and comfort the king, who seemed stricken by
grief and ashamed. Then the vision faded, replaced by a stand of trees, branches gently swaying in the wind.
Then - for the merest heartbeat - the old hunter saw a veiled woman standing close by. She was leaning on a
staff. A huge black crow flew down from the trees and perched upon her shoulder. Parax was instantly terrified.
For this, he knew, was the dreaded Morrigu, the Seidh goddess of mischief and death.
He awoke with a start, and cried out. He could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. He gazed around at
the tree line, but there was no veiled woman, no black crow. The smell of sizzling bacon came to him and he
thought he must still be dreaming. Turning his head he saw a man squatting by a fire, holding a long-handled pan
over the flames. The man glanced across at him and grinned.
'You were having a bad dream, old man,' he said amiably. It was getting dark and the wind was chill. Parax
moved closer to the fire and wrapped his green cloak tightly around his thin shoulders. He stared hard at the
young man. He was beardless, his long blond hair tied back at the nape of his neck, a thin braid, in the style of
the Sea Wolves, hanging from his right temple. Dressed in a hunting shirt of pale green, with a sleeveless brown
leather jerkin, buckskin trews and knee-length riding boots, he wore no sword, but was turning the bacon with a
hunting knife of bright iron.
'You are the Wolfshead, Bane,' said Parax.
'And you are Parax, the King's Hunter.'
'I am - and proud of it.'
Bane laughed. 'Men say you are the greatest tracker of all.'
'So they say,' agreed the old man.
'Not any more, Parax,' said the youngster, with a rueful smile. 'I have been watching you. You've crossed my
trail three times in the last two days. The third time I left a clear print for you to see and you rode straight past it.'
Parax leaned in closer. Now he could see the odd-coloured eyes, one green, one tawny gold. Just like his
father, thought the old man. Just like the king. He seemed older than his seventeen years, harder, more knowing
than he should be. 'Are you planning to kill me?' he asked.
'You want me to?'
'There would be a kind of poetry in it,' said Parax. 'The first time I met your father he was around your age.
He had come to kill me. I had tracked him for days, with a group of Perdii warriors. Oh, but he was clever, and
killed seven of the hunters. And he did everything to throw me from the trail. Great skill he had for a young man.
I tracked him over rock, and through water. He almost fooled me one time. His tracks disappeared below the
branch of an oak. He had hauled himself up, then run along the branch and leapt to a nearby tree. But I was not
old and useless then. I found him.'