"George R. R. Martin - Ice and Fire 0.6 - The Sworn Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

Dunk pushed his fingers through his mop of sun-streaked hair. The dead were beyond his help, and they
had casks of wine to get to Standfast. тАЬWhich way did we come?тАЭ he asked, looking from one road to
the other. тАЬIтАЩm turned around.тАЭ

тАЬStandfast is that way, ser.тАЭ Egg pointed.

тАЬThatтАЩs for us, then. We could be back by evenfall, but not if we sit here all day counting flies.тАЭ He
touched Thunder with his heels and turned the big destrier toward the left-hand fork. Egg put his floppy
hat back on and tugged sharply at MaesterтАЩs lead. The mule left off cropping at the devilgrass and came
along without an argument for once.HeтАЩs hot as well, Dunk thought,and those wine casks must be heavy.

The summer sun had baked the road as hard as brick. Its ruts were deep enough to break a horseтАЩs leg, so
Dunk was careful to keep Thunder to the higher ground between them. He had twisted his own ankle the
day they left Dosk, walking in the black of night when it was cooler. A knight had to learn to live with
aches and pains, the old man used to say.Aye, lad, and with broken bones and scars. TheyтАЩre as much a
part of knighthood as your swords and shields. If Thunder was to break a leg, though . . . well, a knight
without a horse was no knight at all.

Egg followed five yards behind him, with Maester and the wine casks. The boy was walking with one
bare foot in a rut and one out, so he rose and fell with every step. His dagger was sheathed on one hip,
his boots slung over his backpack, his ragged brown tunic rolled up and knotted around his waist.
Beneath his wide-brimmed straw hat, his face was smudged and dirty, his eyes large and dark. He was
ten, not quite five feet tall. Of late he had been sprouting fast, though he had a long long way to grow
before heтАЩd be catching up to Dunk. He looked just like the stableboy he wasnтАЩt, and not at all like who
he really was.

The dead men soon disappeared behind them, but Dunk found himself thinking about them all the same.
The realm was full of lawless men these days. The drought showed no signs of ending, and smallfolk by
the thousands had taken to the roads, looking for someplace where the rains still fell. Lord Bloodraven
had commanded them to return to their own lands and lords, but few obeyed. Many blamed Bloodraven
and King Aerys for the drought. It was a judgment from the gods, they said, for the kinslayer is
accursed. If they were wise, though, they did not say it loudly.How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven
have? ran the riddle Egg had heard in Oldtown.A thousand eyes, and one.

Six years ago in KingтАЩs Landing, Dunk had seen him with his own two eyes, as he rode a pale horse up
the Street of Steel with fifty RavenтАЩs Teeth behind him. That was before King Aerys had ascended to the
Iron Throne and made him the Hand, but even so he cut a striking figure, garbed in smoke and scarlet
with Dark Sister on his hip. His pallid skin and bone-white hair made him look a living corpse. Across


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his cheek and chin spread a wine-stain birthmark that was supposed to resemble a red raven, though
Dunk only saw an odd-shaped blotch of discolored skin. He stared so hard that Bloodraven felt it. The
kingтАЩs sorcerer had turned to study him as he went by. He had one eye, and that one red. The other was
an empty socket, the gift Bittersteel had given him upon the Redgrass Field. Yet it seemed to Dunk that
both eyes had looked right through his skin, down to his very soul.

Despite the heat, the memory made him shiver. тАЬSer?тАЭ Egg called. тАЬAre you unwell?тАЭ