"Andrew J. Offutt - Cormac 05 - Sword of the Gael" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

his grip even so long as to draw steel, that he might die as befit his people, with
sword in ruddy fist.
The little ship spun, swung, tipped, and spun again. It hurtled headlong. Islands
flew by, shod and crowned with jagged rock. Cordage creaked and wood groaned
as if in mortal agony. Men moaned, or prayed, or shoutedтАФor screamed and went
to their fathers.
One among their number was silent, and him alone.
 He was a man apart in other ways, his armour different and his hair a swatch of
the midnight sky. Grim, stolid with the insouciance of a fighting man who expects
neither reward nor punishment but takes what may come from gods and men, his
mouth was tightpressed and his scarred face almost impassive. He had nailed himself
to the dying craft with his own great sword.
Full two inches into the shipтАЩs wood just aft of the dragon headed prow he had
driven that oft-gored blade. Around its hilt he had secured his swordbelt, and to belt
and gunwale he clung, with hands like the vises in a smithтАЩs smoky domain.
This manтАЩs slitted eyes were grey as the steel of the blade by which he bound
himself aboard. In those eyes there was no fear, no horrorтАФnor yet acceptance,
either. Only a certain sadness as his Danish companions died for nought but
god-whim, and a waiting. He remained alert and ready to release his iron handed
grips and hurl himself into those waves like walls, should the craft break or be driven
down into airless realms.
Between two craggy little isles no bigger than the dun-keeps of rich men the frail
craft was swept.
Rocky walls rushed by. Instantly the force of the dread gale was quartered by
intervening granite. Ten men, left of nineteen, heaved sighs of reliefтАФ
But WolfsailтАЩs mindless speed was great. She burst from that rock-shadowed
lee into the open waters once more. Again the angry wind attacked as with a scarlet
battle fury. The vessel lurched twenty feet to starboard as if shoved by the hand of a
callous giant.
тАЬAh, NO!тАЭ a man cried out, and his nails dug into the shipтАЩs seasoned timber so
that the fingers bled. тАЬPray to your peopleтАЩs sea-god, Gael! ItтАЩs in his domain weтАЩre
wind-captured, sure, not the All-fatherтАЩs!тАЭ
The grey-eyed man regarded him without change in his set features. He recalled
the seagod of the blue-hilled land heтАЩd long since left, a fugitive. His lips formed that
ancient name, though not in prayer, for this descendant of Milesian Celts begged of
neither human nor immortal.
тАЬManannan MacLir,тАЭ he murmured.
And then his teeth clamped, hard, for the ship was dashed against the offshore
rocks of another isle and wind-rammed up an unknown beach, and Wolfsail had her
death therefrom, in a terrible scraping and tearing and splintering of wood.
Strong men flew like dolls clad in glittering steel onto that nameless shore, and
were still.
The wind relented and returned to whatever dark lair housed it between the times
it drove howling forth to express contempt and hatred for the sons of men.
Like new gold a summer sun burst its cloud-bonds. Sand sparkled on the strand
of an unknown island well off the southwestern coast of abandoned Britain.
Wind-driven water vanished in vapourous shimmers and the sand paled as it dried.
The airy shimmer hovered, too, above the forms of nine prostrate men. Prone or
supine or pitifully curled, they lay strewn along the shore where theyтАЩd been flung.
The scales and links of battle-scarred armour dried, and heated in the sun.