"Mercedes Lackey - Flights of Fantasy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Bui opened one eye. Something black moved across his field of vision, paused,
quorked again. He raised his head, and it disappeared. In the next moment pain
speared through his skull, and he lost consciousness once more.
When he woke again, the light had dimmed. This time the pain was instantly
present, a dull, pounding ache localized above his left eye. That eye was
swollen shut, but the other was focus-
ing now and he could hear the trickle of water from somewhere nearby. Grass
waved gently in the forefront of his vision. Beyond it, he saw the sleek shape
of a raven. For a moment its glittering black gaze met his own.
"Kru-uk? Ru-uk-uk?"
The inquiry was answered from above. With a groan, Bui rolled over, and the
first raven flapped upward to join its mate in the stunted birch tree. For a
moment of distorted vision he saw them as valkyries, waiting to choose the
doom-fated men they would carry to Odin's hall.
"I'm not dead, curse you!" he whispered. "You'll have to wait for your meal!"
He closed his eye again in a vain attempt to shut out the images flickering in
memoryтАФ Harek and Hild in his father's high seatтАФthe malice in the face of the
thralls as they closed in. Did the nithings believe they had left him for
dead, or did they account a beardless boy of so little worth they did not
care?
The movement had awakened the rest of Bui's body to a host of new agonies. He
had the woozy, sick feeling that comes from blood loss, but no wet warmth to
warn of reopening wounds. He had been hurt badly, but he had spoken truth to
the ravens; he was not going to die for a while yet. For a moment, he found
himself as disappointed as they.
Beyond the birch tree the fells rose stark against the dimming sky. He
set his teeth
against the pain and set about the business of learning to live again.
Before Bui lost consciousness he had managed to stagger a fair way up the
brook toward the fell. The upper part of the vale was a good refuge, far
enough from the farm to keep him from a chance discovery, but sheltered from
the winds. For some days he had just enough strength to crawl from the bank to
the waterside where the vivid purple fireweed grew. There he quenched his
thirst and bathed his wounds.
It was high summer, and the weather held mild, with only a few showers of
rain. Once Bui began to move about, the ravens lost interest in him, though he
often saw them cruising over-head in search of food. They were clearly a mated
pair; he took to calling them Harek and Hild, and threw stones to drive them
away.
Three days of nothing but water and the tender inner bark of the birch left
him as hungry as the birds. Weak as he was, Bui managed to trap a fish in a
circle of stones, which he then filled with more rocks until the water ran out
and the fish flopped helplessly. As he tore at the sweet flesh, he could feel
strength pouring back
into his body.
That night, as he lay curled in a nest of soft grass beneath the trees, he
dreamed.
An old man came walking over the fells, wrapped in a dark cloak with a broad
hat drawn down over his eyes. As he trudged forward,
leaning on his staff, a wind came up, bending the grass and lifting the edges