"John Morressy - The Juggler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morressy John)

door of the tabernacle had been torn off. Vestments lay strewn about the floor, where they had been flung
in the search for plunder. The chaplain was sprawled at the foot of the altar, his head and arm almost
severed, the blood from a dozen wounds darkening his vestments.
Beran found his sister and the other household workers in the kitchen, every one of them dead. The
kitchen and cellars were stripped. Part of a small ham and a loaf of bread had been dropped, and a few turnips. He
sat down to eat then and there, on the kitchen floor. When he was done, he drank a few mouthfuls of ale
that still remained in a shattered cask.
Having eaten, he took stock of his situation. He was the only one left. For the first time in his life, he had
no one to tell him what to do. He had no parents. He had no older brother or sister, and no master. He
could do as he pleased and go where he wished, asking no one's permission. It was a frightening thought,
but an excit-ing one.
He bundled the rest of the ham and bread in a cloth from the kitchen, and started out of the keep. As he
passed a pile of bodies, he saw that one of the attackers had a purse in his fist; he must have been struck
down in the very act of looting. Beran hesitated for a mo-ment, then snatched the purse from the stiff
fingers. It held two gold pieces and a large quantity of silver, along with some smaller coins. He thought
then of the prize his brother had left with their parents. It was no use to them now, and it might help him to
stay alive.
As he left the hall, he had a terrible fright. One of the fallen attackers in the tangle of bodies by the door
groaned and raised his head. The man's face and chest were covered in blood from a gaping wound in his
forehead, but somehow he had survived. Beran froze where he stood. The man groaned again, a sound of
terrible pain. He dragged himself to his feet and took a single step forward. He did not seem to see Beran,
though his eyes were open. He said something in his strange tongue and struck out with one arm as if
bat-tling an enemy,- then he pitched forward and lay still.
The man was alive. Beran could hear his breath coming in great gasps. He looked down and
remem-bered his parents and his sister and Rolf, all so cruelly stabbed and battered. His fear gave way to
hatred and a desire for vengeance. Perhaps this was the very man who had slain them; if not, he was part
of the mur-derous, thieving crew, as guilty as the one who had done the deed.
Moving quietly, Beran put down his bundle and took up a sword from one of the fallen. It was so heavy
he could barely lift it. He poised it over the fallen raider and with all his strength drove it into the man's
back, just below the shoulder blade. It grated against bone, stuck for just an instant, then slid deep into his
trunk. He groaned once more, not very loudly, let out a long sigh, and then his breathing stopped.
Beran drew back from the body, his hatred purged in an instant. All he wanted now was to get away. He
imagined other fallen invaders rising up and lunging toward him, and he took a dagger from one of the
bodies for protection. Beran snatched up his bundle and ran. He reached his parents' cottage without
an-other incident, and dug his brother's prizes from the spot by the corner post where his father had buried
them.
The invaders had come from west of the village. He set out toward the east. He had no destination. He
wanted only to be elsewhere, and never to return to this place again.

THE ROAD

The forest surrounding the village was a meanacing wilderness where men traveled in armed groups and
kept to the marked paths. Beran had heard tales of its perils ever since he was a child. Beasts and savage
men lurked in its depths. False trails turned and circled upon themselves, leading nowhere. A lone wanderer
might be robbed or murdered if he kept to the main track. Once away from it, he would lose his way and
starve or freeze to death, if he did not first fall victim to wild creatures or to something worse. Things
neither human nor animal roamed the forest, and against them there was no defense but the help of heaven.
The village had always meant home, refuge, the place of family and friends and safety. That was so no
longer. The forest was danger. Home and refuge, fam-ily and friends, the village and the people he had
known, all had been destroyed in one terrible day. He could not remain in the village, amid corpses and