"Reichert, Mickey - Renshai 1 - Last Of The Renshai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

A band of Northmen closed in from the east. Another

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chased the retreating Renshai, their battle calls frenzied and hungry as wolf howls.

"There are no reasons for cowardice!" Kallmir screamed something else Rache could not hear, but his mother's answer came clearly to him.

"The prophecy at Kor N'rual. The Northern Sorceress' prophecy. A Renshai must fight at the Great War."

'' A prophecy!'' Kallmir shouted over the roar of flame and the victory cries of pursuing Northmen, growing closer with every step. "You would damn yourself and my child to Hel for a prophecy that bodes as much evil as good? Let the Wizards handle their own damned prophecies. The West is their concern, not ours. We owe them nothing. Nothing! Every life in the Westlands is not worth the cost of one Renshai soul." He whirled suddenly, hurling himself onto the growing crowd of Northmen. For several seconds, Rache saw his father's blade skip through the masses, flinging blood. Then Kallmir disappeared beneath the charge without so much as a dying cry. The Northmen's pace scarcely slackened. Shore sounds wafted, soft beneath the shouts and the pounding feet.

"Papa!" Rache bucked against his mother like a madman.

"Rache, no." She stumbled, and Rache's tunic tore.

He sprang toward the battle, but his mother caught her balance and a fresh grasp. The noise of waves smashing rock sifted beneath the din of swordplay. Rache jarred backward, slipped, and his mother dragged him several steps farther. The Northmen closed the gap between them.

"Turn and fight!" Rache flailed. Death in glory. A place in Valhalla. Rache had learned his lessons well. "They're coming closer." He lunged, pulled up short by his mother's grip, but his sword buried itself in a Northman's gut.

Rache's mother tripped him, heaving him backward. The sword ripped from his fist, sheering off" calluses. Something sliced his side, flashing pain across his abdomen. Rache tumbled, and suddenly, there was nothing but air beneath him. The cliff faces of the fjord blurred past. Before he could react, even in panic, he crashed into the depths. Water spewed over him. Darkness pressed him, his consciousness jerking and swaying. He

The Last of the Re\shai

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clawed to the surface, feeling the bubbles churned by his fall. The ebb tide dragged at him.

"Modi!" His mother's scream echoed in the cavern. She crashed to a ledge, lying still, awkward and broken.

Stunned by the fall and the battle, Rache made no sound. He swam into the shadow of a cliff face and clung there, his ears full of voices amplified by the towering stone, Northmen's words in the high king's tongue.

"Did someone get the child?"

"Sigurd's blow knocked him off the fjdrd. Then the woman killed Sigurd."

A third voice: "The boy's dead."

A "hew man continued the conversation. "Well, someone get down there and find the body, or it'll cost us. Never saw a Renshai run from swordplay.''

One spat. "Cowards all. Dead cowards now."

The voices receded.

The salt of the Amirannak Sea stung Rache's hand and the gash in his side. Ghosts of blood curled into the water. And Rache began to cry.

Rache awakened bruised and battered in every limb, and the pain throughout his entire body made the superficial gash in his side seem trivial. Despite the spring weather, he felt chilled, his clothing soaked through, his skin macerated. He moved, feeling grit and seashell fragments shift beneath him. He opened his eyes and discovered only dark sand; he lay, facedown on the shore. Gradually, memory returned. He recalled swimming, longer, harder, farther than ever before. Disoriented by the darkness, Rache was caught by the mainland tide, tossed repeatedly against the cliffs, fighting at first from strength of will, then only from habit. Dimly, he remembered finding the open beach, hauling himself across the sand like a cripple, and there surrendering to a deeper darkness.

Rache twisted his head. The midday sun glazed into his vision, blinding him. He flicked his lids closed and sank back to the sand. Other memories assailed him then: hungry red flames consuming the only world he knew as home; death screams in wild, savage triumph; the silver clang and beat of swordplay that was deadly, beau-