"Brian Jacques - Redwall 08 - The Outcast Of Redwall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jacques Brian)

weasel aside.

Later, as fresh flames licked hungrily around resinous pine boughs, Swartt lay
back gritting his teeth and muttering savagely, "We'll meet again, badger.
Make the best of these few days y've got leftтАФI'll find ye, Scumtripe!"

The badger did not stop running until it was broad daylight, cold and crystal
clear. He halted in a smalt clearing at the forest edge. Skarlath fluttered to
one side as the hefty young badger threw himself down in the snow and lay
panting, tongue lolling, as steam rose from his thick coat. After a while he
sat up, cramming pawfuls of the cooling snow into his mouth and gulping them
down.

Skarlath hopped about, testing his wings with short swoops, noting gratefully
that his pinions were undamaged. Glad to be alive, he shook his plumage and
spread his wings. "Heeeeh! Rest, friend, then we go far away!" he cried.

The badger stood and picked up his club. "You go where you want. When I've
rested and found something to eat, I'm going back there to slay that vermin
Swartt Sixclaw!"

The young kestrel took flight and wheeled round the badger's head, his wings
brushing his friend's gold-striped muzzle. "Heekeeer!" he cried. "Then you are
a deadbeast, my friend.

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Brian Jacques

Swartt has too many vermin; you will surely be slain!"

The badger clenched his jaws as his body trembled with rage. "For many seasons
that ferret held me slave, dragging me around, hobbled and muzzled, starving,
beating, making fun of me. Scumtripe, that was his name for meтАФScumtripe! I'll
make him repeat my name tenscore times before I slay him with this club. But
what is my name?"

Whirling his club, the badger charged a dead elm stump and struck the rotting
wood a mighty blow ... Whumpjfl A hole appeared in the elm stump as Skarlath
shrieked out, "Kreeee! Look, food!"

Hazelnuts, chestnuts, and acorns poured out onto the snow, the forgotten cache
of some careless squirrel. Anger was momentarily forgotten as the two friends
laughed aloud at their good fortune and fell upon the life-giving treasure.
Sitting on the stump, the badger cracked shells in his strong teeth and placed
the nuts before his friend. Soon they were both crunching and munching.

The kestrel spoke around a beakful of chestnut: ' 'I am Skarlath; I was alone,