"Roland Green - Conan at the Demon's Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Roland)

to my men and their kinтАФno one said a craven word.

We did keep our formation as we searched the slope for that cave. It was well

that it was not far, for in about the time it takes to change the guard, the

rain was coming down in a deluge. We might have been standing under a waterfall,

and neither good leather nor oiled wool nor any armor ever forged could keep us

from being sodden to the skin.

We covered the final paces to the cave with more haste than dignity, and with

small regard for a proper formation. Once inside, with the rain no longer

battering on our helmets until it addled our wits, I quickly arrayed the men.

Sentries at the mouth of the cave, sentries toward the rear, the driest and

cleanest place for the wounded, and those neither standing sentry nor tending

the wounded allowed to strip and dry their weapons, armor, and clothes.
I set myself to counting our resources in the matter of food and water. Each of

us had come out with two days' salt meat and hard bread, and a full water-bottle

besides the ones we were to fill. If the Picts did not cut us off from the

streams, the rills would be swollen full by the rain, and there might be water

toward the rear of the cave, which seemed to lead far into the rocks. Such rocks

in Pictland were usually honeycombed with underground springs andтАФ

"Captain! To the rear!"

It was one of the rear sentries, a clear-headed Bossonian who would not have let

confusion or fear show in his voice without good cause. I ordered all to their

feet and all weapons readied, and went to stand beside the sentry.

At the edge of the torchlight, I saw worked stone. It was far too fine to be

Pictish work, and far too fresh to have come down from the time of the old

Hyborian invasions. I thought I could make out lintels, doorways, benches of

living rock, and unwholesomely sinuous figures.