"Michael A. Stackpole - Talion Revenant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stackpole Michael A)

TALION
REVENANT
Michael A. Stackpole
Copyright 1997
ISBN 0-553-57656-9




Chapter One

TALION:
AMBUSH

Had Morai given the job to anyone else, the ambush would have gotten me.
The assassin waited just halfway up the hill on the camp's north side. New
spring undergrowth covered the steep slope and a light breeze stirred things enough
to cover tiny movements and sounds, yet caused nothing to obstruct the assassin's
view of the camp. Sitting there, at the base of the big oak, he could watch everything
with little fear of discovery.
His position gave him an easy crossbow shot at anything in the flat clearing
below. Morai's men had stripped or scattered all the cover so I'd have no place to
hide if the first crossbow bolt missed. And, if I was quick enough to figure out
where the bolt had come from, the only way I could get to the ambusher was a
suicidal charge up the hill, straight at him.
The only questionable part of Morai's plan was assigning Fortune the job of
killing me. Fortune, the sixteen-year-old miller's son from Forest Crossing, had run
away from home and decided to join the bandits who had just raided his town. The
other members of the gang probably would have killed him outright or, if Chi'gandir
had his way, done worse. By setting the youth out as a trap for me, though, Morai
amused his men and saved the boy.
Clearly bored out of his mind, Fortune perched on a knobby root at the base
of the oak. He'd waited a long time for me to walk into his sights, and after a
morning of nervous, sweaty anticipation he'd set the crossbow down. After a quarter
of an hour or so he took out the gold Imperial Morai had paid him for my head and
inspected it. He traced the golden profile of Ell's King with a dirty fingernail and even
though he'd never held a gold coin before, the novelty of it soon wore off.
Fortune, perhaps entranced by the omen of his name, flipped the coin into the
air. The coin rang with each flick of his thumb, and sunlight flashed from the bright
metal. With each subsequent toss the gold piece rose higher and higher until, at the
peak of its gilded arc, it vanished into the oak's lower branches. Fortune caught it
each time it fell toward the earth and slapped it down on the back of his left hand.
He'd peel his right hand away slowly, smiling or frowning at the face of the coin
showing. His guess right or wrong, he'd slide the coin into his right hand and launch
it again.
One final time the coin flew from his hand as before, but then glanced off a
tree branch and ricocheted to his left. Landing on the hard-packed earth, it rolled
around back behind the tree and out of his sight. Fortune stretched, looked down at
the clearing, and rose to a crouch. He turned around the sturdy barrel of oak and
stopped abruptly.