"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 25 - Torian Pearls." - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

For the test in running, Blade had to run three times around the testing area. Two strong warriors would
run after him, and if they caught him, they could prod him in the buttocks with the points of their swords.
Paor was asked to be one of the warriors, but refused.

"It is known well enough how much I favor your being accepted among the Kargoi. There are those who
might doubt I could give you a true testing, and therefore doubt your fitness."

The substitute for Paor turned out to be one of Rehod's friends, a long-legged, rangy man who looked
like a natural runner. Blade was quite certain he would not be easy for anyone to run down. Three times
around the testing area was no more than three miles. Blade had kept pace with a party of Zungan
hunters across fifty miles of open veldt.

Blade and his two pursuers started off at an easy pace, hardly more than a brisk jog. The other two ran
level with him for a few hundred yards. Then step by step they began to fall back. After another hundred
yards Blade looked behind him. The others were now holding their position, and the look on their faces
was easy to read. He was not outrunning them at all. They were deliberately dropping back, to lull him
into slowing his own pace. Nice try, he thought, but it won't work.

Instead of slowing his pace, Blade began to increase it. He did this so carefully that the gap between him
and the men behind him nearly doubled before they realized what was happening. Blade saw the face of
Rehod's friend harden. Then his long legs seemed to blur as he dashed forward after Blade.

Blade was plunging forward before the other man covered half a dozen steps. Blade's legs flew,
devouring the ground in great leaping strides. His long arms pumped up and down like pistons, pushing
air into the lungs in his massive chest. He raced along, working steadily up to the pace that had once
taken him a mile in three seconds less than four minutes.

In moments of stress like this Blade had the ability to almost sense what lay behind him without seeing it.
He knew that both men were making a desperate effort to close, that both had their swords reaching out
for him, and that neither was anywhere near him. He ran on, still faster.

They finished the first lap with Blade still well out in front. Now Blade was able to look back. The sun
glinted on the polished steel of the swords and also on the sweat pouring down the men's bodies.
Rehod's friend looked as if he could run all day, but the second man's movements were becoming clumsy
and his eyes stared blindly ahead.

Halfway through the second lap, the second man began to drop back. His face was twisted in frustration
and pain, and he flailed away at the air with his sword as if he was hacking into the flesh of a hated
enemy. Rehod's friend flashed a brief loop of contempt at his weaker comrade, then returned to his grim
pursuit of Blade. His face was now set into a mask like the temple image of some particularly
bad-tempered god. Blade suspected that if the man caught him he would do far more with that sword
than merely prick Blade's buttocks. It would be an "accident;" of course.

The two men finished the second lap and charged into the third. The man behind still looked as if he
could run all day, in spite of the sweat pouring down him. Blade felt exactly the same way. The
spectators had been shouting, in excitement or in support of one side or the other. Now they stopped,
watching the runners' duel in silence.

Halfway through the final lap Rehod's friend made his great effort. He raced after Blade at a pace good