"Fritz Leiber - FGM 2 - Swords Against Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

of the sea grass flat and lashed into writhing the arms of the thorn and
seahawk trees. It pushed black swampwater a yard up the northern side of the
narrow, serpentine, flat-topped ridge that was Causey Road. Then came pelting
rain.
The two swordsmen made no comment to each other and did not alter their
movements, except to lift their shoulders and faces a little and slant the
latter north, as if they welcomed the storm's cleansing and sting and what
tiny distraction it brought to some deep agony of mind and heart.
"Ho, Fafhrd!" a deep voice grated above the thunder's growl and the
wind's roar and the rattle of the rain.
The tall swordsman turned his head sharply south.
"Hist, Gray Mouser!"
The small swordsman did likewise.
Close by the southern side of the road a rather large, rounded hut
stood on five narrow posts. The posts had to be tall, for Causey Road ran high
here yet the floor of the hut's low, rounded doorway looked straight at the
tall swordsman's head.
This was nothing very strange, except that all men know that none dwell
in the venomous Great Salt Marsh, save for giant worms, poison eels, water
cobras, pale spindle-legged swamp rats, and the like.
Blue lightning glared, revealing with great clarity a hooded figure
crouched inside the low doorway. Each fold and twist of the figure's draperies
stood out as precisely as in an iron engraving closely viewed.
But the lightning showed nothing whatsoever inside the hood, only inky
blackness.
Thunder crashed.
Then from the hood the grating voice recited the following lines,
harshly and humorlessly hammering out the words, so that what was light verse
became a dismal and doomful incantation:_Ho, Fafhrd tall!Hist, Mouser
small!Why leave you the cityOf marvelous parts?It were a great pityTo wear out
your heartsAnd wear out the soles of your feet,Treading all earth,Foregoing
all mirth,Before you once more Lankhmar greet.Now return, now return, now!_
This doleful ditty was three-quarters done before the two swordsmen
realized that they were striding along steadily all this while and the hut
still abreast them. So it must be walking along with them on its posts, or
legs rather. And now that they were aware of this, they could see those five
thin wooden members swinging and knee-bending.
When the grating voice ceased to speak on that last great "now," Fafhrd
halted.
So did the Mouser.
So did the hut.
The two swordsmen turned toward the low doorway, facing it squarely.
Simultaneously with deafening thunderclap, a great bolt of lightning
struck close behind them. It jolted their bodies, shocked their flesh
thrillingly and painfully, and it illumined the hut and its dweller brighter
than day, yet still revealed nothing inside the dweller's hood.
If the hood had been empty, the draperies at its back would have been
shown clearly. But no, there was only that oval of ebon darkness, which even
the levinbolt could not illumine.
As unmoved by this prodigy as by the thunder-stroke, Fafhrd bellowed