"Sean Russell - The Swan's War 2 - Isle of Battle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Sean)

19

ing floor of loose rock, some of it large, most not. Alaan could almost run now, his knee
loosening up a little. The trick was to keep his speed under control. The rock slid
beneath his feet, and he stood upon its moving back like a trick rider at a fair. When it
slowed, he went on, leaping knee-high boulders, falling once to bloody his knuckles.
Twice he paused to fire arrows back up at the men behindтАФkeeping them at a distance.
The path he took offered them few branchings or even other passable tracks to take.
Alaan did not want to lose Hafydd's guardsтАФor Hafydd. Not yet.
Is he there? he wondered. Does that aspect of Caibre survive in this stern knight?
Alaan knew what miscalculation now would mean. Hafydd had made a bargain with the
nagar, ancient soul of the sorcerer Caibre. Only Alaan still had memories of Caibre from
an age ago when he had overrun kingdoms, putting man, woman, and child to the
sword. Of spells that had thrown down mountains, toppled castles, and shattered the
bones of the earth. Caibre was a monster whose air was the smoke of war, whose wine
was the blood of his enemiesтАФ and it was always difficult to predict who Caibre would
decide was his enemy. Difficult to predict, one day to the next.
He pressed on until he was down from the high cliffs and under the trees of a wooded
gully. This place did not match with any view that could be seen from above, but Hafydd
would not be much bothered by that. He had chased Alaan before.
Beneath the trees the air was moist and cool, and the ground was soft beneath his feet.
A little stream curled out of the dark to bounce and burble along the gully bottom, as
though it had come to keep him company.
This should allay Hafydd's worst fears, Alaan thought: ivater. He could not die where
there was water.
Streaks of moonlight swarmed over the ground as the wind whipped the trees to and
fro, and Alaan went forward haltingly, trying to make sense of the frantic landscape.
dean Russell

The air rasped cruelly in and out of his lungs now, and his mind seemed numbed, the
sound of his breathing loud in his ears, punctuated by the dull thuds of his footfalls.

There was a shout from behind, and an arrow buried itself in the ground near his boot.
Alaan pushed himself on, dodging into shadow, the trees throwing stains of moonlight
at his feet then stealing them away.

On the wind he thought he heard a distant baying like hounds, but he paid it no mind.

The slope began to level, and Alaan leapt the moon-silvered stream, which only
whispered now. He stopped in the shadow of a tree, bent double, listening. The
moonlight chased madly across the clearing. When the silhouettes of men appeared, he
showed himself, waited until he was seen, then slipped into shadow and ran on. He
knew how dangerous this was, keeping the men so close, but on the paths he traveled, if
he lost his hunters they would never find him againтАФand he didn't want that; not yet.

The slope went steeply down again, and the smell of rotting vegetation wafted up on a
falling breeze. By the time he found the shore of the swamp, he was out of breath, and
stopped again, standing with one foot in the tepid water.