"Moorcock, Michael - Corum 01 - Knight Of Swords (v3.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

The red horse trotted off over the moor, leaving the village behind.
Now Prince Corum knew that Mabden power had grown greater than any Vadhagh would have suspected. They had 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 manЧKing Lyr-a-Brode. The name meant as much as, or something like, in their coarsened dialect, King of All the Land.
Corum remembered the rumors. That Vadhagh castles had been taken by these half-beasts. That the Nbadragh Isles had 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 had was knowledge. Was it knowledge that the Mabden feared?
For ten days, pausing twice to rest, Prince Corum rode north, but now he had a different vision of what Castle Gal would look like when he reached it. But he must go there to make sure. And he must warn Prince Faguin and his 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 he had seen, but many 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.
Once, by a huge effort, he was forced to move both himself and his 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 had seen, these did not ride horses, but had 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 hard to believe that such insensitive beasts as these, 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 bottom 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 had been riding.
But here there had been a much longer siege, by the look of it. A battle had raged here that had lasted many days. The Vadhagh had been more prepared at Castle Gal.
Hoping that he would find some wounded kinsmen whom he could help, Corum urged his horse to gallop up the hill.
But the only thing that lived beyond the blazing castle was a groaning Mabden, abandoned by his fellows. Corum ignored him.
He found three corpses of his own folk. Not one of the three had died quickly or without what the Mabden would doubtless consider humiliation. There were two warriors who had been stripped of their arms and armor. And there was a child. A girl of about six years.
Corura bent and picked up the corpses one by one, carrying them to the fire to be consumed. He went back to his horse.
The wounded Mabden called out. Corum paused. It was not the usual Mabden accent.
"Help 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 and a helmet that covered most of his face, which had slipped to blind him. Corum tugged at the helmet until it was free, tossed it aside, and then gasped.
This was no Mabden. Nor was it a Vadhagh. It was die 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!Ф snarled the being. "A Vadhagh lives!"
"Aye. I live. Why do you hate me?"
"All Nhadragh hate the Vadhagh. They have hated them through eternity! Why are you not dead? Have you been hiding?"
"I am not from Castle Gal."
"So I was right. This was not the last Vadhagh castle." The being tried to stir, tried to draw his knife, but he was too weak. He fell back.
"Hatred was not what the Nhadragh had once," Corum said. "You wanted our lands, yes. But you fought us without this hatred, and we fought you without it. You have learned hatred from the Mabden, Nhadragh, not from your ancestors. They knew honor. You did not. How could one of the older races make himself a Mabden slave?"
The Nhadragh's lips smiled slightly. "All the Nhadragh that remain are Mabden slaves and have been for two hundred years. They only suffer us to live in order to use us like dogs, to sniff out those beings they call Shefanhow. We swore oaths of loyalty to them in order to continue living."
"But could you not escape? There are other planes."
"The other planes were denied to us. Our historians held that the last great battle of the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh so disrupted the equilibrium of those planes that they were closed to us by the Gods . . ."
"So you have relearnt superstition, too," mused Corum. "Ah, what do these Mabden do to us?"
The Nhadragh began to laugh and the laugh turned into a cough and blood came out of his mouth and poured down his chin. As Corum wiped away the blood, he said, "They supersede us, Vadhagh. They bring the darkness and they bring the terror. They are the bane of beauty and the doom of truth. The world is Mabden now. We have no right to continue existing. Nature abhors us. We should not be here!"
Corum sighed. "Is that your thinking, or theirs?"
"It is a fact."
Corum shrugged. "Perhaps."
"It is a fact, Vadhagh. You would be mad if you denied it"
"You said you thought this the last of our castles.Ф
"Not I. I sensed there was another one. I told them."
"And they have gone to seek it?"
"Yes."
Corum gripped the being's shoulder. "Where?"
The Nhadragh smiled. "Where? Where else but in the West?"
Corum ran to his horse.
"Stay!" croaked the Nhadragh. "Slay me, I pray you, Vadhagh! Do not let me linger!"
"I do not know how to kill," Corum replied as he mounted the horse.
"Then you must learn, Vadhagh. You must learn!" cackled the dying being as Corum frantically forced his horse to gallop down the hill.