"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 19 - Looters of Tharn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

of them carrying his children. There was Princess Aumara in Zunga. Probably Queen Aumara now,
raising their child to rule after her over the warriors of Zunga.

There was also Zulekia, the red-haired Maiduke woman of Tharn. She too had been carrying his child
when the computer had snatched him back from Tharn. But he had been there long enough to do much
of what needed to be done. He had smashed the decadence that had gripped Tharn for centuries and
opened a future for it. He wondered how they were coming along in their struggle toward that future.
Those who had survived the great battle with the Pethcines and the destruction of Urcit would be Lord
Leighton's hand came down on the master switch. Blade saw it too late to relax, to compose his mind, or
ever to clear his musings about Tharn out of it. Zulekia's high-browed golden face with its mass of
red-gold hair floated before his eyes as the switch snapped downward.

It still hung there as Lord Leighton, the computer, the whole gloomy chamber snapped out of existence
in a single moment. There was no light or sound, no sense of heat or cold. Blade was alone in a lightless,
soundless, senseless void, motionless, speechless. Nothing registered on his senses except Zulekia's face
in front of him.

Then the face flared brightly, the gold hues of her skin turning luminous. It rose to incandescence,
flickered, and was gone. The void was all around Blade, and a chill of utter loneliness entered his bones.
In a single moment all awareness left him.

Chapter 3

Blade came back to consciousness several feet up in the air. He landed with a thud and rolled down a
grassy slope, arms and legs flailing wildly. At the bottom he crashed against a small tree, picking up a few
more bruises, then lay quietly.

Gradually the splitting pain in his head and the ringing in his ears faded away. Now he heard the thin
moan of wind sweeping past from vast distances, the creak of strained trees, the whispering ripple of
wind-blown grass, the chirrrrr of a bird or an insect.

Off to his right a mighty range of hills sprawled across the horizon, towering against a pale blue sky
where white wisps of clouds raced before the wind. Blade sat up, and perspective returned to his vision
in a moment.

The hills were not a mile high and many miles away. They were only a low undulating ridge, perhaps two
hundred feet high at most. A few stunted trees, no more than saplings, poked out above the bushes and
long grass along the crest. Between Blade and the ridge lay a grassy depression no more than a mile
wide.

Blade rose to his feet and brushed grass and dirt off his bare skin. He reached down and broke off one
of the saplings, then stripped it of leaves and branches. It was hardly thicker or heavier than a walking
stick and wouldn't be much of a weapon against any human or large animal. But he could at least jab it
into the ground ahead of him, testing his way. It also made him feel better, which was even more
important. The right frame of mind was always a good part of the job of survival.

Blade looked toward the ridge again. It certainly looked like the highest point anywhere close at hand. In
the other three directions gently rolling grassland stretched away endlessly to a distant horizon. The grass
grew thickly, in tangled masses. It was dark green, with pale yellowish brown stripes and spots on it that
made it look diseased. Blade turned back toward the ridge and strode down toward the valley, the