"George R. R. Martin - Ice and Fire 3 - A Storm of Swords" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

what he likes?"
Small Paul blinked his black little eyes. Maybe he had forgotten, Chett
thought; he was stupid enough to forget most anything. "Why do we have to kill
the Old Bear? Why don't we just go off and let him be?"
"You think he'll let us be?" said Lark. "He'll hunt us down. You want to be
hunted, you great muttonhead?"
"No," said Small Paul. "I don't want that. I don't."
"So you'll kill him?" said Lark.
"Yes." The huge man stamped the butt of his spear on the frozen riverbank. "I
will. He shouldn't hunt us."
The Sisterman took his hands from his armpits and turned to Chett. "We need to
kill all the officers, I say."
Chett was sick of hearing it. "We been over this. The Old Bear dies, and Blane
from the Shadow Tower. Grubbs and Aethan as well, their ill luck for drawing
the watch, Dywen and Barmen for their tracking, and Ser Piggy for the ravens.
That's all. We kill them quiet, while they sleep. One scream and we're
wormfood, every one of us." His boils were red with rage. "Just do your bit
and see that your cousins do theirs. And Paul, try and remember, it's third
watch, not second."
"Third watch," the big man said, through hair and frozen snot. "Me and
Softfoot. I remember, Chett."
The moon would be black tonight, and they had jiggered the watches so as to
have eight of their own standing sentry, with two more guarding the horses. It
wasn't going to get much riper than that. Besides, the wildlings could be upon
them any day now. Chett meant to be well away from here before that happened.
He meant to live.
Three hundred sworn brothers of the Night's Watch had ridden north, two
hundred from Castle Black and another hundred from the Shadow Tower. It was
the biggest ranging in living memory, near a third of the Watch's strength.
They meant to find Ben Stark, Ser Waymar Royce, and the other rangers who'd
gone missing, and discover why the wildlings were leaving their villages.
Well, they were no closer to Stark and Royce than when they'd left the Wall,
but they'd learned where all the wildlings had gone - up into the icy heights
of the godsforsaken Frostfangs. They could squat up there till the end of time
and it wouldn't prick Chett's boils none.
But no. They were coming down. Down the Milkwater.
Chett raised his eyes and there it was. The river's stony banks were
bearded by ice, its pale milky waters flowing endlessly down out of the
Frostfangs. And now Mance Rayder and his wildlings were flowing down the same
way. Thoren Smallwood had returned in a lather three days past. While he was
telling the Old Bear what his scouts had seen, his man Kedge Whiteye told the
rest of them. "They're still well up the foothills, but they're coming," Kedge
said, warming his hands over the fire. "Harma the Dogshead has the van, the
poxy bitch. Goady crept up on her camp and saw her plain by the fire. That
fool Tumberjon wanted to pick her off with an arrow, but Smallwood had better
sense."
Chett spat. "How many were there, could you tell?"
"Many and more. Twenty, thirty thousand, we didn't stay to count. Harma had
five hundred in the van, every one ahorse."
The men around the fire exchanged uneasy looks. It was a rare thing to find