"Michael Moorcock - Von Bek 1 - The War Hound and the World's" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

Hell; for the Prince of Darkness wished to strike a bargain with me.

Until May of 16311 had commanded a troop of irregular infantry, mainly Poles, Swedes and Scots. We
had taken part in the destruction and looting of the city of Magdeburg, having somehow found
ourselves in the army of the Catholic forces under Count Johann Tzerclaes Tilly. Wind-borne
gunpowder had turned the city into one huge keg and she had gone up all of a piece, driving us out
with tittle booty to show for our hard work.

Disappointed and belligerent, wearied by the business of rapine and slaughter, quarrelling over
what pathetic bits of goods they had managed to pull from the blazing houses, my men elected to
split away from Tilly's forces. His had been a singularly ill-fed and badly equipped army, victim
to the pride of bickering allies. It was a relief to leave it behind us.

We struck south into the foothills of the Hartz Mountains, intending to rest. However, it soon
became evident to



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12

The War Hound and the World's Pain

me that some of my men had contracted the Plague, and I deemed it wise, therefore, to saddle my
horse quietly one night and, taking what food there was, continue my journey alone.

Having deserted my men, I was not free from the presence of death or desolation. The world was in
agony and shrieked its pain.

By noon I had passed seven gallows on which men and women had been hanged and four wheels on which
three men and one boy had been broken. I passed the remains of a stake at which some poor wretch
(witch or heretic) had been burned: whitened bone peering through charred wood and flesh.

No field was untouched by fire; the very forests stank of decay. Soot lay deep upon the road,
borne by the black smoke which spread and spread from innumerable burning bodies, from sacked
villages, from castles ruined by cannonade and siege; and at night my passage was often lit by
fires from burning monasteries and abbeys. Day was black and grey, whether the sun shone or no;
night was red as blood and white from a moon pale as a cadaver. All was dead or dying; all was
despair.

Life was leaving Germany and perhaps the whole world; I saw nothing but corpses. Once I observed a
ragged creature stirring on the road ahead of me, fluttering and flopping like a wounded crow, but
the old woman had expired before I reached her.

Even the ravens of the battlegrounds had fallen dead upon the remains of their carrion, bits of
rotting flesh still in their beaks, their bodies stiff, their eyes dull as they stared into the
meaningless void, neither Heaven, Hell nor yet Limbo (where there is, after all, still a little
hope).