"Ron Goulart - The Prisoner of Blackwood Castle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

He fell over backward, arms flying wide.
The little velvet-suited boy had gotten behind him somehow, unseen
and unheard. Making a chittering, giggling noise over what he'd done, the
small cherubic automaton went scurrying away into the darkness at the
edge of the room.
Before Harry could scramble to his feet, the swordsman's blade, sharp
edge outermost, came swishing down toward his head.
Harry rolled.
Rolled right into the mechanical man, toppling him over.
The figure landed hard and made a rattling clang.
Harry dived to his left, got to his feet and ran for the end of the room.
The other fencer was still unmoving on the pedestal. Harry shouldered the
figure off his perch, at the same time grabbing the saber free from his
waxen hand.
It was a British-style saber, its blade of finely tempered steel and about
an inch shy of being three feet long. Harry'd been taught to use a saber by
his father, starting back in his fifteenth year. Quite probably even a
murderous automaton wouldn't be as nasty an opponent as his father had
been.
The mechanical man who was trying to kill him was upright again,
coming slowly his way.
"Might as well make this sporting." Harry saluted his opponent with his
borrowed weapon.
Stopping a few feet short of Harry, the fencing automaton returned the
salute. He immediately thereafter launched a running attack.
That was an approach Harry's impetuous father had frequently favored.
He parried the mechanical man's thrust, retreated and then lunged.
The automaton met the blade of Harry's saber with a blocking parry
and their blades clanked.
Harry prevented his opponent's riposte with an unorthodox wrist flick.
Grinning bleakly, he tried a running attack of his own. Lunging, he passed
his blade over the point of his adversary's, raised the other saber and then
achieved a touch.
When the point of his saber hit the chest of the automaton, there was a
small rattling metallic sound.
His clockwork opponent closed with him suddenly and neither of them
could use his blade.
This close Harry could see a faint reddish glow behind the glassy eyes,
and he was aware of a faint scent of machine oil.
They moved free of each other and the bout continued. Their blades
clicked against each other in the silent shadowy pavilion. The rain was
falling hard now, pounding on the blue glass dome overhead.
As he fought the automaton Harry realized something. Although the
mechanical man had been built to do a bit of assassination now and then,
he was basically only an expert fencer. Expert, but quite traditional and
conservative. His parries and ripostes were all by the book.
"No reason for me to get skewered by this gadget," Harry decided. "So
let's quit fighting fair."
Grinning more broadly into the waxen face, Harry lunged again and
then, unexpectedly, kicked the mechanical swordsman in the crotch.