"Springer, Nancy - Book Of The Isle 3 - Sable Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

them eastward. She longed to see him, even if only for a day, to talk with him. But there was no gainsaying the dread that lay over the land, a vague and shadowy fear that touched even the folk of Laueroc, who lived far from any forest. She would see him when the peril was past. Alan felt shamefully glad that he would not have to face her. For some reason he would not explain even to himself, he could not have showed her the sword.
He showed it to Ket and Rafe in private. Ket was dubious, Rafe awed and cheered by the sight of Hau Ferddas. "So that is the weapon of which Gwern sang!" he exclaimed, and Alan lifted his bent head to eye him fishily.
"Gwern sang? That must have been a treat! And how would he know of this sword?"
"What matter?" Rafe cried recklessly. "You have got yourself a magical sword to use against the wolves! Now, if only you could find a magical steed to put under it!"
Alan had ordered Rafe special troops from Laueroc, picked men mounted on horses of the elfin blood. But the news of their performance was disappointing.
"Ordinary horses flee from the wolves," Rafe reported bleakly. "The elwedeyn steeds flee sooner and more swiftly. They bolt at even the sound of a wolf."
"Marvelously sensible creatures," Alan grumbled. "If only we could all follow their example! But Isle is not big enough for that. Has Rhyssiart had a chance to prove himself, Ket?"
The lanky seneschal looked uncomfortable. "Ye know I'm no horseman, Alan. But the first time we spied a shadow in the Forest, he carried me clear back to the river before I could stop him."
"We must hunt the wolves afoot, then."
"That suits me," Ket drawled.
"My men have no stomach to face them afoot, not in the Forest," Rafe stated. "And I will not order them to do what I would not do myself." His fear showed frankly in his dark, ardent eyes.
"Rafe and the Forest," Alan sighed. "Will you never come to terms? Well, Ket and I are woodsmen, and we'll find some volunteers. What power will we need, do you think? How many wolves are seen these days?"

"As many as a dozen at a time!" Rafe burst out. "I've seen that many myself-and none have been slain! They will not come near a sword, though they mock a swordsman from a distance. Instead, they plague the poor folk who are helpless against them. They are clever, insolent cowards!"
"We must bait them, then, to entrap them." Alan's eyes glowed with a grim light that made Rafe stare.
"How?"
"Don't you think," Alan rejoined, "that they would like to catch themselves a King?"
Alan proposed to lure the wolves into battle, using himself as an enticement. But Ket and Rafe both opposed the plan, magical sword or no. With the Prince absent, Alan's peril also put the throne at stake. The three of them argued for hours. Rafe was so dismayed that he offered to go himself in Alan's stead. Rafe, who regarded the Forest with nightmare dread! Even in his despair, Alan was touched by such loyalty. But talk of Prince and kingdom meant nothing to him. For some reason beyond reason, he believed they were as good as lost. And he felt angrily compelled to thrust himself against his enemy. He silenced the protests at last by power of his royal command, and he and Ket laid their plans.
Alan was to venture into the Forest on horseback with a few retainers, few enough to tempt the wolves but still sufficient to provide some security. He would appear to hunt at random, but actually he would ride toward a fortified place known to him and to Ket, who had roamed these parts for years of outlawry. Ket would follow him after an hour or so with more men and with blankets and food, backpacked, in case the horses fled. Ket and Alan knew the Forest. It would take them no more than a day or two to return to Lee afoot-if they lived.
The following morning dawned gray, but clear of sky. Alan started out early with a company of half a dozen men, carrying his monstrous sword. The evening before, wolves had set upon a young tenant as he hauled water to his cottage. Alan and his men rode to the spot, then cantered into the Forest, following the tracks of their quarry. After a while they seemed to lose the trail and went on deeper into the vast woods, appearing to search aimlessly. The men glanced about

them nervously, but followed their King without a murmur. Before midday the wail of the wolves arose from all sides. The men stiffened in their saddles and the horses shied, but Alan smiled grimly.
"Good," he said. "They are keeping their distance, and we will meet them as planned. Hold your pace."
They continued at the walk and heard the wolves draw gradually closer. But before long they came to the remains of what must once have been a circular tower. Twice man high at spots, it was at least waist high all around, except for the gaping doorway.
"What people could have built this, to abide here in this wilderness?" a man wondered aloud.
"A very ancient people," Alan answered him equably, "for I dare say the Forest has grown around it since. . . . Tether your horses off to one side there, and range yourselves within."
They dismounted and took positions with drawn swords. Alan himself took the door, with Hau Ferddas in hand. His eyes glinted and his nostrils pulsed at the thought of combat, a chance to vent his hatred and despair. He felt Hau Ferddas lighten in his hand, come alive. Roused, it sliced upward and poised itself, like a stooping hawk, at the level of Alan's face.
"Here they come," he told his men.
A rippling, flowing mass of gray, the wolves loped from among the trees. The horses shrieked, snapped their tethers, and bolted away. Within the moment, wolves as large as half-grown calves surrounded the ruined tower three deep, standing with trembling eagerness, jeering. Alan felt his hair prickle, for he understood their song, though he could not tell why they lusted for his blood. He recognized their leader at once: the wolf even bigger than the rest, seated apart. It was the same insolent brute he had encountered near Whitewater; he felt sure of it. This time Alan would not speak to it, but he studied it intently. Bristly gray snout and eyes of yellowish hue-where had he seen those bilious eyes before?
The jaundiced gaze met his, and for a moment Alan's body went as watery as tears. Hau Ferddas faltered in his hand, and he didn't notice; all he could see was Trevyn's fair form, torn and denied by leering beasts. Then something rock-hard

within him pushed the vision aside. Anger surged through him, the sword leaped in his hand, and his head snapped up, shaking off the haze of nightmare. In an instant the wolf leader yapped, and battle was joined.
Like so many arrows loosed from the same string, the wolves sprang. The sword in Alan's grasp whistled down at them of its own accord, rendered mighty by its own weight, breaking a lupine neck with its first blow. Chanting harshly, filled with a fierce, bitter joy, Alan raised a pile of dead wolves before him. But the living ones sprang again and again, gleefully, mindlessly, leaping over the bodies of their slain comrades as if they were so much grass.
Lost in the satisfaction of his own power and revenge, Alan did not notice at first that his men were tiring, flinching wide-eyed from the frenzy of the wolves. Then the man beside him gurgled and fell, borne down by the wolf that had leaped past his wearied stroke. Alan turned and smote, but the blow came too late; the beast had opened the man's throat.
"Courage!" Alan shouted to the others. "Ket should come soon." From his easy seat off to one side, the big wolf panted his pleasure. But in a moment his sneer faded, as Ket and his company burst into view.
Their horses plunged about and would not charge. So they dismounted and let the steeds bolt, forming a long line of attack on foot. Ket fought with the bow, his favorite weapon. His men used swords or cudgels. Even with swords to front and swords to back, the wolves lost none of their feverish zeal. But their numbers were lessened, and they were forced back. Hemmed in by the press, the leader rose from his place and circled, growling. "Get that one!" Alan shouted, pointing, and Ket aimed his shaft. Then he froze, stunned.
Wolves poured out of the Forest; wolves, so it seemed, by the hundred. Before Alan could stir his tongue to cry out, they engulfed Ket and his men, as sudden and deadly as a flood. Soldiers fell, screaming, and the few with Alan in the tower stood dumbfounded with shock. His own shield arm hung slack, his magical sword plummeted earthward, and before his very face loomed the grinning countenance of the yellow-eyed leader. Obstinate instinct still stirred in Alan,

though hope was gone. Rallying, he cut at his bestial adversary and called on those from whom he had often received succor in the past: "O lian elys liedendes, holme a on, il prier!" ["Oh spirits of those who once lived, come to me, I pray!"] Then he shouted to his men, "Stand! Stand where you are, for your lives' sake!"
The presence of the spirits enveloped them instantly, and his command was lost in the uproar that resulted. Wolves and men shrieked, their screams mingling and their paths crossing as they fled into the Forest like demented things. Though the spirits came to Alan as friends in his time of need, the others felt them only as a mind-blackening terror of the unknown. The wolfish leader scuttled away from them like a kicked cur. Ket's face went as white as death, and he swayed as if he had been struck a mighty blow. "Ket! Stand!" Alan cried, dropped his sword and ran to him, leaping corpses. The spirits had already passed and gone their way. Alan held Ket until his trembling stopped and he raised his head, gasping for air like a drowning man.
"What wonder is this?" he demanded shakily. "The haunt is miles hence. Has it come to us?"
"I called the spirits, ay. Are you all right, Ket?"
"I'll live," he sighed.
"Come, help me, then." They turned their attention to the bodies that choked the place, checking them one by one. There were no survivors; the wolves had struck straight to the life's blood of each man. Alan and Ket would not meet each other's sickened eyes.
"What about the others?" Ket asked gruffly.
"We must try to round them up, I dare say. . . . But look, it is starting to snow."
Tiny, hard-edged flakes whizzed past thickly, harried by a biting wind. Already, as Alan spoke, the ground was sprinkled and the trees shrouded with white.
"The sky was clear this morning," Ket complained wearily. "Whence came this snow? And whence came those wolves, I wonder? There were none about as we rode; I would swear to that. It's as if someone conjured them up."
Alan shot him a startled glance, then shook off the thought; he did not like the notion of such a conjuror. And the present