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

Prostrate men sent back a steely scintillance.
 Nine men, lying still.
All were flaxen or red of hair, save the one whose dark mane tumbled from
beneath his scarred helmet. All wore armour of good scale mail, save only that one,
whose chainmail was forged and linked in the way of Eirrin and Alba to the
northeast. All were believers in and followers of One-eyed Odin and his
hammer-wielding son Thor or ThunorтАФsave only that one, whose superstitions lay
with those of the Druids: The Sidhe of green-cloaked Eirrin, and Agron and
Scathach, Grannus and Morrigu the Battle Crow and cu Roi mac Dairi, and Behl of
the sun for whom burned the Behl-fires... and great Crom, god of an Eirrin older
even that BehlтАЩs power.
All, too, were of the cold land of the Danes, save only that one, and he of
EirrinтАФand an exile.
It was he who first awoke.
The Gael wakened to the familiar salt scent of the sea. A gull screeked. Lying
still, the black-haired man twitched his nostrils in the manner of a wary wolf. He
scented nothing of that which was all too familiarтАФraw, blood. Blinking against the
flaming sun and the lingering grogginess of unconsciousness, he squinted open his
eyes.
тАЬBlood of the gods,тАЭ he muttered. тАЬThis be no afterworld, surelyтАФI live!тАЭ
Slowly, alert to the flashing pain of broken limb or back or neck, he sat up.
There was no flash, but only twinges from a body badly used by the wind. He was
whole. Those twinges might have brought moans and lamentations and supine
confinement to other men. To him, they were but the boon companions of
weapon-men. He was whole; it was enough.
He looked about.
Strewn around him were his companions, lying as they had fallen along a stretch
of beach that would have enclosed the house of one of those self-proclaimed
тАЬkingsтАЭ of Britain since the Romans left. A tiny smile tugged at his mouth when he
saw the rise and fall of the great barrel that was the chest of Wulfhere Skull-splitter.
The giant lived also. Slitted eyes roved; assured their owner that so did all
breatheтАФthough there were but seven others.
Before the gale, they had been one and twenty.
He swallowed. There was thirst on him. With a grunt he rose, saw the gleam of
his sword, and retrieved it. He wiped it again and again on his sun-hot trews before
returning it to the sand; a watery sheath was no more trustworthy than a crowned
man.
As he unbuckled belt with pendent sheaths, he looked around himself the more.
Of their ship there was no sign. Dragged back by the wind, he mused grimly,
and chased on to be buried in the sea. We are stranded here, then. And... where is
тАЬhereтАЭ?
The sweet sandy shore was a lie. This was a barren and inhospitable speck on
the waters, and it would offer little comfort to man or beast. Only the fowls could
come and go at will, for aye there were ugly-voiced gulls, and he heard the honk of
wild ducks or geese.
 And all around: stone. Granite and basalt, igneous rock like petrified sponge,
and the sand to which some of it had been worn, by wind and sea with the aid of
uncaring time.
He saw how the beach ran up bare and desolate, strewn with drifts and gravel
and fragments of rock. Then rose, towering, steep and gloomy ramparts of natural