"Norton, Andre - Gryphon Saga 1 - Crystal Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

"I have had no news out of Ulmsdale for - " How long had it been? One day in my mind slid into another. It seemed that I had always been tired, hungry, cold, under the shadow of fear - and this had gone on forever.

"It would be wise for you to ride north." Imgry had gone back to the fire, not turning his head toward me as he spoke. "We cannot spare you any force of men, not more than one armsman - "

It rasped my pride that he would deem me fearful of traveling without an escort. I thought that my services as scout must have proved that I could manage such a ride without detaching any force save myself from his company.

"I can go alone," I said shortly. And began sipping at the stew, drinking it from the bowl since there was no spoon offered me. It was heartening and I relished it.

He made no protest. "Well enough. You should ride with the morn. I shall send a messenger to your men, and you can remain here."

I spent the rest of the night wrapped in my cloak on the floor of the house. And I did indeed ride with the first light, two journey cakes in a travel pouch, and a fresh mount that Lord Imgry's armsman brought to me. His lord did not bid me farewell, nor did he leave me good-speed wishes.

The way north could not be straight, and not always could I follow any road if I would make speed, taking mainly sheep tracks and old cattle paths. There were times when I dismounted and led my horse, working a way along steep dale walls.

I carried a fire touch with me and could have had a fire to warm and brighten the nights I sheltered in some shepherd's hut, but I did not. For this was wild country, and we had already heard rumors that the wolves of the Waste were raiding inland, finding rich pickings in the dales where the fighting men had gone. For my mail and weapons, my mount, I would be target enough to draw such.

Mainly I spent the nights in dales, at keeps where I was kept talking late by the leaders of pitiful garrisons to supply the latest news, or in inns where the villagers were not so
openly demanding but none the less eager to hear. On the fifth day, well after nooning, I saw the Giant's Fist, that beacon crag of my own homedale. There were clouds overhead, and the wind was chill. I thought it well to speed my pace. The rough traveling was wearing on my horse, and I had been trying to favor him. But if I dropped down to the trader's road, I would lose time now, so I kept to the pasture trails.

Not that that saved me. They must have had their watchers in the crags ready for me to walk into a trap. And walk into it I did, leading my plodding horse, just at the boundaries of Ulmsdale.

There was no warning given me as there had been that other time when death had lain in ambush. So I went to what might have been slaughter with the helplessness of a sheep at butchering time.

The land here was made for such a deed, as I had to come along a narrow path on the edge of a drop. My horse threw up its head and nickered. But the alert was too late. A crashing blow between my shoulders made me loose the reins and totter forward. Then, for a moment of pure horror, I was falling out and down.

Darkness about me - dark and pain that ebbed and flowed with every breath I drew. I could not think, only feel. Yet some instinct or need to survive set me scrabbling feebly with my hands. And that urge worked also in my darkened mind, so that even though I could not think coherently, I was dimly aware that I was lying face-down, my head and shoulders lower than the rest of me, jammed in among bushes.

I believe that my fall must have ended in a slide and that those bushes saved my life by halting my progress down to the rocks at the foot of the drop. If my attackers were watching me from above, they must have thought I had fallen to my death, or they certainly would have made a way down to finish me with a handy rock.

Of such facts I was not then aware, only of my pain of body and a dim need to better my position. I was crawling before I was conscious of what I must do. And my struggles led to another slide and more dark.

The second time I recovered my senses it was because of water, ice cold with the chill of a hill spring as it washed against my cheek. Sputtering, choking, I jerked up my head, trying to roll away from that flood. A moment later I was head-down once more, lapping at the water, its coldness adding to my shivering chili, but still clearing my head, ordering my thoughts.

How long I had lain in my first fall I did not know, but it was dark now, and that dusk was not a figment of my weakened brain I was sure. The moon was rising, unusually bright and clear. I pulled myself up to a sitting position.

It had not been Waste outlaws who had attacked me, or they would have come to plunder my mail and weapons and so finished me off. The thought awoke a horror in me. Had Lord Imgry's suggestion already come to a terrible conclusion here? Had the invaders moved in to occupy Ulmsdale, and had one of their scout parties met me?

Yet that attack had so much of an ambush about it, had been delivered in so stealthy a fashion, that I could not believe it had been launched by the enemies I had faced in the south. No, there was something too secret in it.

I began to explore my body for hurts and thought I was lucky that no bones seemed to be broken. That I was badly bruised and had a lump on my head was the worst. Perhaps my mail and the bushes in which I had landed had protected me from worse injury. But I was shaking from shock and chill, and found when I tried to drag myself to my feet I could not stand, but had to drop down again, clutching at a rocky spur to steady myself.

There was no sign of my horse. Had it been taken by those who had thrown me over? Where were they now? The thought that they might be searching for me made me fumble to draw sword and lay it, bare-bladed, across my knee. I was not too far from the keep. If I could get to my feet and get on I would reach the first of the pasture fields. But every movement racked me so with pain that my breath hissed between my teeth, and I had to bite down upon my lower lip until I tasted my own blood before I could steady myself.

I had been much-favored by fortune in escaping with my life. But I was in no manner able to defend myself now. Therefore, until I got back a measure of strength, I had to move slowly and with all caution.

What I heard were the usual night sounds-birds, animals, such as were nocturnal in their lives. There was no wind, and the night seemed to me abnormally still, as if waiting. Waiting for what - or whom?

Now and then I shifted position, each time testing my muscles and limbs. At last I was able to struggle to my feet and keep that position, in spite of the fact that the ground heaved under me. The quiet, except for the continued murmur of the water, continued. Surely no one could come near without revealing himself.

I essayed a step or two, planting my boots firmly on the rocking ground, looking ahead for hand-holds to keep me upright. Then I saw a wall, the moon making its stones brightly silver. Toward this I headed and then along it, pausing ever to listen.