"Harry Harrison - Hammer Cross 1 - The Hammer and the Cross" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

"Go in and get him," yelled Godwin. "Move, you hare-hearts! He can't hurt
you." Two of the fishermen darted forward between the waves, grabbed an arm
each and
hauled him back, for a moment waist-deep amid the smother but then out, the
redbeard
braced between them.
"He's still alive," muttered Wulfgar in astonishment. "I thought that wave was
enough
to break his spine."
The redbeard's feet touched the shore, he looked round at the eighty men
confronting
him, his teeth showed suddenly in a flashing grin.
"What welcome," he remarked.
He turned in the grip of his two rescuers, placed the outside of his foot on
one man's
shin, raked it down with full weight onto the instep. The man howled and let
go the brawny
arm he was clutching. Instantly the arm swept across, two fingers extended,
driving deep
into the eyes of the man still holding on. He, too, shrieked and fell to his
knees, blood
starting from between his fingers. The Viking plucked the gutting-knife from
his belt,
stepped forward, seized the nearest Englishman with one hand and stabbed
savagely
upwards with the other. As the fisherman's mates leapt back, shouting in
alarm, he snatched
a spear, whipped the knife back and hurled it, grabbed a sax from the hand of
the fallen
man. Ten heartbeats after his feet touched the shore he was the center of a
semicircle of
men, all backing away from him, except the two still lying at his feet.
His teeth showed again as he threw his head back in a wild guffaw. "Come now,"
he
shouted gutturally. "I one, you many. Come to fight with Ragnar. Who is great
one who
comes first? You. Or you." He flourished his spear at Godwin and Wulfgar, now
isolated,
mouths gaping, by the fishermen still drawing respectfully back.
"We'll have to take him," muttered Godwin, drawing his broadsword with a
wheep. "I
wish I had my shield."
Wulfgar followed suit, stepping sideways, pushing back the fair-haired boy who
stood
a pace behind him. "Go back, Alfgar. If we can disarm him the churls will
finish it for us."
The two Englishmen edged forward, swords drawn, facing the bearlike figure
which
stood grinning, waiting for them, the blood and water still surging round his
feet.