"Michael Moorcock - The Runestaff 3 - The Sword of The Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

THE LAST CITY

THE GRIM RIDERS spurred their battle-steeds up
the muddy slopes of the hill, coughing as their lungs
took in the thick black smoke rising from the valley.

It was evening, the sun was setting, and their gro-
tesque shadows were long. In the twilight, it seemed
that gigantic beast-headed creatures rode the horses.

Each rider bore a banner, stained by war, each wore
a huge beast-mask of jewelled metal and heavy armour
of steel, brass and silver, emblazoned with its wearer's
device, battered and bloodied, and each gauntleted
right hand gripped a weapon on which was encrusted
the remains of a hundred innocents.

The six horsemen reached the top of the hill and
dragged their snorting mounts to a halt, stabbing their
banners into the earth where they flapped like the
wings of birds of prey in the hot wind from the valley.

Wolf-mask turned to stare at Fly-mask, Ape glanced
at Goat, Rat seemed to grin at HoundЧa grin of
triumph. The Beasts of the Dark Empire, each a War-
lord of thousands, looked beyond the valley and be-
yond the hills to the sea, looked back at the blazing city
below them where, faintly, they could hear the wails
of the slaughtered and the tormented.

The sun set, night fell arid the flames burned bright-
er, reflected in the dark metal of the masks of the
Lords of Granbretan.

"Well, my lords," said Baron Meliadus, Grand Con-
stable of the Order of, the Wolf, Commander of the

Army of Conquest, his deep, vibrant voice booming
from within his great mask, "well, we have conquered
all Europe now."

Mygel Hoist, skeletal Archduke of Londra, head of
which he had barely escaped with his life, laughed,
the Order of the Goat, veteran of the Kamarg, from
"AyeЧall Europe. Not an inch of it is not ours. And
now great parts of the East belong to us also." The
Goat helm nodded as if in satisfaction, the ruby eyes
catching the firelight, flashing malignantly.