"Mithgar - Hel's Crucible - 01 - Into The Forge" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKiernan Dennis L)

Chapter 1




WhaЧ? In the chill dark Tipperton started awakeЧWhat was that? He lay quietly and listened, straining to hear above the burble of the Wilder River, the water running freely beneath its sheath of winter ice. I thought I heardЧ

shing

There it is agaiЧ!

shing-shang . . . chang . . .

Distant metal striking metal. What thЧ?

Tipperton swung his feet over the edge of his bunk, and in the icy gloom stumbled from his bed and across the cold wooden floorЧ"Ow!"Чbarking his shin against a misplaced bench.

Shang-chang! Chnk! The clang of metal upon metal grew louder, as if coming this way.

He fumbled about on the table, knocking aside pots and pans as he searched for the lantern, whileЧChing-chang!Ч the rattle and clash grew louder still, now mingled with guttural shouts and the thudding of feet.

At last among the trenchers and kettles Tipperton found the lantern, and just as he ineffectually flicked the striker, a high-pitched scream sounded, and something heavy thudded against the ground outside.

Tipperton flicked the striker again, and this time the wick caught. He lowered the glass and a yellow glow filled the mill chamber, illuminating the great overhead shafts and gears and wooden cogs that drove the massive buhr-stones, all now at a standstill, for the sluice weir was shut and no current flowed through the millrace and over the grand water wheel.

Yahh! Chank! Dring! Clang! Tipperton stepped to the door and slid back the crossbar and flung the portal wide just asЧThdd!Чsomeone or something slammed against the mill wall, the entire structure juddering with the blow, sending a shower of grain dust drifting down from the cedar shakes above.

In nought but a nightshirt and holding his lantern on high, Tipperton stepped out upon the porchЧ"Hoy, now, what's all this racket?"Чand in the dimness just beyond the reach of the glow he saw black shapes whirling in melee.

"Get back, you fool!" came a shout, even as a dark figure broke free from the tumult and hurtled toward Tipperton.

"Waugh!" The buccan leapt hindward, slamming the door to and ramming the crossbar home just as whatever had rushed at him crashed up against the shut wooden panel.

Feet thudded upon the porch, and window glass shattered inward as Tipperton darted across the chamber and snatched his bow from above the mantel of the hearth. Amid thuds and tromping and screams and shouts and the skirl of steel upon steel, swiftly the buccan strung the weapon. Seizing his quiver and leaving the lantern behind, Tipperton scrambled up a ladder to the catwalk above and raced to a sliding door in the wall and jerked the panel aside. In the frigid light of diamond winter stars and in the frosty rays of the pale quarter moon riding upward in the southeast, he clambered out into the snow-laden run of the wooden sluice, the blanket covering a thin layer of ice.

In that moment there sounded a shriek and a heavy crashing down . . . and lo! except for Tipperton's own hammering heart and gasping breath and the burble of water below the ice, all fell silent.

Arrow nocked and crouching low, Tipperton made his way to where he could see the front of the mill. Several dark shapes lay scattered and unmoving upon the snow, and two or three were slumped on the porch. Cautiously, Tipperton crept to a point above a millrace support and waited, the buccan shivering in the frigid cold, for his feet were bare and planted in snow lying upon ice, and he was yet dressed in naught but a nightshirt. Long moments passed, and all remained still. At last he climbed down the support ladder, and with bow drawn taut, and ignoring his numbing feet, he moved through the snow to one of the sprawled shapes.

It was a Ruck. Dead. Hacked by some kind of blade. The now glazed-over viper eyes staring upward.

Tipperton moved onward through churned-up snow, his gorge rising as he cautiously stepped past a dead, hamstrung, eviscerated horseЧsteam rising through the cold airЧand among more slain Rucks: leather-clad, bandylegged, batwing-eared, dusky-skinned. Their dark ichor seeped outward upon the snow, and weaponsЧscimitars and cudgelsЧlay scattered. Most of the dead had been cut or pierced by a blade of some sort, though the skulls of one or two had been bashed in. And here, too, vapor rose from gaping wounds and spilled entrails steaming.

Arrow yet nocked, Tipperton came to the porch. Half on, half off the planking, another Ruck lay dead. And to the left and slumped against the door lay two bodies. The one on top was a HlokЧRucklike but taller and with straighter limbsЧpierced through by a sword, his body yet impaled by the blade; he still clutched a bloody tulwar in his dead hand. As to the other body, the one on the bottom, itЧ

ЧgroanedЧ