"Michael Moorcock - Corum 1 - The Knight Of The Swords" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Book one 35

Denledhyssi will come back and take more of our food, kill more of our menfolk, rape more of our women. Go away, Shefanhow Lord, we beg you. We have put the food in the sack by the door. Take it and leave us.'
Corum saw the sack now. So, it had been an offering to him. Did they not know that their heavy food would not settle in a Vadhagh stomach?
`I do not want food, Mabden,' he called back.
'What do you want, Shefanhow Lord? We have nothing else but our souls.'
`I do not know what you urean. I seek answers to questions.'
'The Shefanhow know everything. We know nothing.'
`Why do you fear the Denledhyssi? Why do you call me a fiend? We Vadhagh have never harmed you.'
'The Denledhyssi call you Shefanhow. And because we dwelt in peace with your folk, the Denledhyssi punish us. They say that Mabden must kill the Shefanhow - the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh - that you are evil. They say our crime is to let evil live. They say that the Mabden are put upon this earth to destroy the Shefanhow. The Denledhyssi are the servants of the great Earl, Glandyth-aнKrae, whose own liege is our liege, King Lyr-a-Brode whose stone city called Kalenwyr is in the high lands of the N.orth East. Do you not know all this, Shefanhow Lord?'
`I did not know it,' said Prince Corum softly, turning his borse away. `And now that I know it, I do not understand it.' He raised his voice. `Farewell, Mabden. I'll give you no further cause for fear. . .' And then be paused. `But tell me one last thing.'
'What is that, Lord?' came the nervous voice.
`Why does a Mabden destroy another Mabden?'
`I do not understand you, Lord.'
`I have seen members of your race killing fellow members of that race. Is this something you often do?'
36 The Knight of the Swords

`Aye, Lord. We do it quite often. We punish those who break our laws. We set an example to those who might consider breaking those laws.'
Prince Corum sighed. `Thank you, Mabden. I ride away now.'
The red horse trotted off over the moor, leaving the village behind.
Now Prince Corum knew that Mabden power bad grown greater than any Vadhagh would have suspected. They bad a primitively complicated social order, with leaders of different ranks. Permanent settlements of a variety of sizes. The larger part of Bro-an-Vadhagh seemed ruled by a single man - King Lyr-a-Brode. The name meant as much, something like, in their coarsened dialect, King of All the Land.
Corum remenibered the rumours. That Vadhagh castles bad been taken by these half-beasts. That the Nhadragh Isles bad fallen completely to them.
And there were Mabden who devoted their whole lives to seeking out members of the older races and destroying them. Why? The older races did not threaten Man. What threat could they be to a species so numerous and fierce? All that the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh bad was knowledge. Was it knowledge that the Mabden feared?
For ten days, pausing twice to rest, Prince Corum rode North, but now he bad a different vision of what Castle Gal would look like when he reached it. But be must go there to make sure. And he must warn Prince Faguin and bis family of their danger, if they still lived.
The settlements of the Mabden were seen often and Prince Corum avoided them. Some were of the size of the first be bad scen, but marsy were larger, built around grim stone towers. Sometimes he saw bands of warriors riding by and only the sharper senses of the Vadhagh enabled him to see them before they sighted him.

Book one 37

Once, by a huge effort, he was forced to move both himself and bis horse into the next dimension to avoid confrontation with Mabden. He watched them ride past him, less than ten feet away, completely unable to observe him. Like the others he bad scen, these did not ride horses, but bad chariots drawn by shaggy ponies. As Corum saw their faces, pocked with disease, thick with grease and filth, their bodies strung with barbaric ornament, he wondered at their powers of destruction. It was still bard to believe that such insensitive beasts as hese, who appeared to have no second sight at all, could bring to ruin the great castles of the Vadhagh.
And at last the Prince in the Scarlet Robe reached the pottom of the hill on which Castle Gal stood and saw the black smoke billowing and the red flames leaping and :knew from what fresh destruction the Mabden beasts bad been riding.
But here there bad been a much longer siege, by the jaok of it. A battle bad raged here that bad lasted many days. The Vadhagh bad been more prepared at Castle Gal. Hoping that he would find some wounded kinsmen whom фc could help, Corum urged bis horse to gallop up the hill.
But the only thing that lived beyond the blazing castle a groaning Mabden, abandoned by bis fellows. Corum hored him.
He found three corpses of bis own folk. Not one of the =ree bad died quickly or without what the Mabden would doubtless consider humiliation. There were two warriors
who bad been stripped of their arms and armour. And there was a child. A girl of about six years.
Corum bent and picked up the corpses one by one, ,carrying them to the fire to be consumed. He went to bis &Erse.
The wounded Mabden called out. Corum paused. It was the usual Mabden accent.


38 The Knight of the Swords

`Helg me, master!'
This was the liquid tongue of the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh.
Was this a Vadhagh who had disguised himself as a Mabden to escape death? Corum began to walk back leading his horse through the billowing smoke.
He looked down at the Mabden. He wore a bulky wolfskin coat covered by a half-byrnie of iron links, a helmet that covered most of his face and which had slipped to blind him. Corum tugged at the heluret until it was free, tossed it aside and then gasped.
This was no Mabden. Nor was it a Vadhagh. It was the bloodied face of a Nhadragh, dark with flat features and hair growing down to the ridge of the eye-sockets.
`Help me, master,' said the Nhadragh again. `I am not too badly hurt. I can still be of service.'
'To whom, Nhadragh?' said Corum softly. He tore off a piece of the man's sleeve and wiped the blood free of the eyes. The Nhadragh blinked, focusing on him.
'Who would you serve, Nhadragh? Would you serve me?'
The Nhadragh's dazed eyes cleared and then filled with an emotion Corum could only surmise was hatred.
`Vadhagh!' snarled the being. `A Vadhagh lives!'