"David Gemmell - Sipstrassi Tales 04 - The Last Guardian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

at his wounded side and he groaned and sank back into his fever dreams.
He was riding towards the mountains when he heard a shot; he rode to the crest of a hill and
gazed down on a farmyard where three men were dragging two women from their home.
Drawing a pistol, Shannow kicked his stallion into a run and thundered towards the scene. When
the men saw him they flung the women aside and two of them drew flintkcks from their belts; the
third ran at him with a knife. He dragged on the reins and the stallion reared. Shannow timed his
first shot well and a brigand was punched from his feet. The knife-man leapt, but Shannow
swung in the saddle and fired point-blank, the bullet entering the man's forehead and exiting from
the neck in a bloody spray. The third man loosed a shot that ricocheted from the pommel of
Shannow's saddle to tear into his hip. Ignoring the sudden pain, the Jerusalem Man fired twice.
The first shell took the brigand high in the shoulder, spinning him; the second hammered into his
skull.
In the sudden silence, Shannon sat his stallion gazing at the women. The elder of the two
approached him and he could see the fear in her eyes. Blood was seeping from his wound and
dripping to the saddle, but he sat upright as she neared.
'What do you want of us?' she asked.
'Nothing, Lady, save to help you.'
тАШWell,' she said, her eyes hard, 'you have done that, and we thank you.' She backed away, still
staring at him. He knew she could see the blood, but he could not - would not - beg for aid.
'Good day to you,' he said, swinging the stallion and heading away.
The younger girl ran after him; blonde and pretty, her face was leathered by the sunlight and the
hardship of wilderness farming. She gazed up at him with large blue eyes.
тАШI am sorry,' she told him. 'My mother distrusts all men. I am so sorry.'
'Get away from him, girl!' shouted the older woman, and she fell back.
Shannow nodded. 'She probably has good reason,' he said. тАШI am sorry I cannot stay and help you
bury these vermin.'
'You are wounded. Let me help you.'
'No. There is a city near here, I am sure. It has white spires and gates of burnished gold. There
they will tend me.'
There are no cities,' she said.
тАШI will find it.' He touched his heels to the stallion's flanks and rode from the farmyard.
A hand touched him and he awoke. The bestial face was leaning over him. 'How are you feeling?'
The voice was deep and slow and slurred, and the question had to be repeated twice before
Shannow could understand it. 'I am alive - thanks to you. Who are you?' The creature's great head
tilted. 'Good. Usually the question is what are you. My name is Shir-ran. You are a strong man to
live so long with such a wound.'
'The ball passed through me,' said Shannow. 'Can you help me to sit?'
'No. Lie there. I have stitched the wounds, front and back, but my fingers are not what they were.
Lie still and rest tonight. We will talk in the morning.'
'My horse?'
'Safe. He was a little frightened of me, but we understand each other now. I fed him the grain you
carried in your saddlebags. Sleep, Man.'
Shannow relaxed and moved his hand under the blankets to rest on the wound over his right hip.
He could feel the tightness of the stitches and the clumsy knots. There was no bleeding, but he
was worried about the fibres from his coat which had been driven into his flesh. It was these that
killed more often than ball or shell, aiding gangrene and poisoning the blood.
'It is a good wound,' said Shir-ran softly, as if reading his mind. 'The issue of blood cleansed it, I
think. But here in the mountains wounds heal well. The air is clean. Bacteria find it hard to
survive at thirty below.'
'Bacteria?' whispered Shannow, his eyes closing.