"Fritz Leiber - FGM 3 - Swords in the Mist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

planted and right hands bone-squeezingly gripped, each strained to force the
back of the other's wrist down against the ringed and scarred and carved and
knife-stuck wood. Gnarlag, who scowled sneeringly, had the advantage by a
thumb's length.
One of the fog-strands, as though itself a devotee of the wrist game
and curious about the bout, drifted over Gnarlag's shoulder. To the old harlot
the inquisitive fog-strand looked redly-veined -- a reflection from the
torches, no doubt, but she prayed it brought fresh blood to Gnarlag.
The fog-finger touched the taut arm. Gnarlag's sneering look turned to
one of pure hate, and the muscles of his forearm seemed to double in thickness
as he rotated it more than a half turn. There was a muffled snap and a gasp of
anguish. The mercenary's wrist had been broken.
Gnarlag stood up. He knocked to the wall a wine cup offered him and
cuffed aside a girl who would have embraced him. Then grabbing up his two
swords on their thick belt from the bench beside him, he strode to the brick
stairs and up out of the Rats' Nest. By some trick of air currents, perhaps,
it seemed that a fog-strand rested across his shoulders like a comradely arm.
When he was gone, someone said, "Gnarlag was ever a cold and ungrateful
winner." The dark mercenary stared at his dangling hand and bit back groans.
****
"So tell me, giant philosopher, why we're not dukes," the Gray Mouser
demanded, unrolling a forefinger from the fist on his knee so that it pointed
across the brazier at Fafhrd. "Or emperors, for that matter, or demigods."
"We are not dukes because we're no man's man," Fafhrd replied smugly,
settling his shoulders against the stone horse-trough. "Even a duke must
butter up a king, and demigods the gods. We butter no one. We go our own way,
choosing our own adventures -- and our own follies! Better freedom and a
chilly road than a warm hearth and servitude."
"There speaks the hound turned out by his last master and not yet found
new boots to slaver on," the Mouser retorted with comradely sardonic
impudence. "Look you, you noble liar, we've labored for a dozen lords and
kings and merchants fat. You've served Movarl across the Inner Sea. I've
served the bandit Harsel. We've both served this Glipkerio, whose girl is tied
to Ilthmar this same night."
"Those are exceptions," Fafhrd protested grandly. "And even when we
serve, we make the rules. We bow to no man's ultimate command, dance to no
wizard's drumming, join no mob, hark to no wildering hate-call. When we draw
sword, it's for ourselves alone. _What's that?"_
He had lifted his sword for emphasis, gripping it by the scabbard just
below the guard, but now he held it still with the hilt near his ear.
"It hums a warning!" he said tersely after a moment. "The steel twangs
softly in its sheath!"
Chuckling tolerantly at this show of superstition, the Mouser drew his
slimmer sword from its light scabbard, sighted along the blade's oiled length
at the red embers, spotted a couple of dark flecks and began to rub at them
with a rag.
When nothing more happened, Fafhrd said grudgingly as he laid down his
undrawn sword, "Perchance only a dragon walked across the cave where the blade
was forged. Still, I don't like this tainted mist."
****