"SM Stirling - Change 02 - Scourge of God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)
KuttnerТs head whipped to the east; there was sound from that direction too, the rumble of hooves building to a gallop, and then a mingled crash and clatter of weapons and a cry of УJesu-Maria!Ф and УUSA!Ф And then, even better: УA rescue! A rescue!Ф
УKill the prisoners!Ф the Cutter leader barked, and ran towards the sound.
Mathilda felt ice crawl up her spine and pool like water in her gut. SheТd been lying with her legs curled up; now she lashed out with both her feet. They were bound at the ankle, but she had her boots on. They just barely touched the overlapping plates of leather armor that covered the guardТs legs like chaps. He hissed in anger and drew his shete, raising it for a chop. Beside him his comrade did likewise.
That was a mistake. Odard had managed to writhe around and get his feet beneath him. The young Baron of Gervais bounced forward like a jack-in-the-box, his mailed shoulder hitting the second man in the side like a football tackle and sending him lurching into the first. That delayed them an instant as they staggered and found their footing again, but they both turned to chop at the young nobleman as he sprawled before them with an involuntary grunt of pain as he crashed to the ground.
Thatwas a mistake, too. A patch of the night seemed to rise behind them, and something flashed through the starlightЧa black hardwood dowel, linked to the one in Ritva HavelТs right hand by a short length of chain. It whipped around one CutterТs neck with blurring speed; the free handle slapped into her other palm, and she wrenched her crossed wrists apart with explosive force.
The Cutter spasmed as the huge leverage crushed his larynx and snapped his spine like a pecan in a pair of nutcrackers. The shete that flew out of his hand struck Mathilda in the stomach, edge-on, hard enough to hurt even through the titanium mail of her hauberk and the padded gambeson beneath. She grabbed it with both bound hands and cut the rawhide thongs around her boots with one quick upward jerk; it was good steel, and knife-sharp. Then she jammed the flat of the blade between her knees and slipped her wrists over to saw atthose bonds.
All that took seconds. That was time enough for the other guard to cut backhanded at Ritva. The broad point of the shete slashed sagebrush from her war cloak, but she was throwing herself backwards in a full summersault as the blow spent itself on air, hitting the toggle of the cloak, and drawing her slender longsword as she did.
УLacho Calad! Drego Morn!Ф
The D·nedain war cry split the night:Flame light! Flee night! But half a dozen Cutters were closing in, on horse and on foot.
Mathilda paused just long enough to slash through OdardТs bonds; he was wheezing from the awkward impact of his fall, but doggedly trying to get back on his feet. Then she picked up one of the Cutter shields and stepped to put herself back-to-back with Ritva.
УHaro, Portland!Фshe shouted.УHoly Mary for Portland!Ф
And Mary help me, IТm as stiff as an arthritic old lady!she thought desperately.
She raised the clumsy, point-heavy shete and tried to ignore the pins and needles in her arms; this one was far too heavy for her wrists, anyway. It wobbled a little despite her best effort, and she whipped it through a figure eight to loosen her cramped arm and shoulder.
УMaryТs over trying to save IngolfТs fool neck,Ф Ritva said, and laughed.
а
УMorrig·!ФRudi shouted, and thrust his bow through the carrying loops on the bandolier that held his quiver. УAt them, Mackenzies!Ф
All two of us,he thought.Three if you count the dog!
He swept out his longsword in the same motion and snatched the buckler with his left hand, making a fist on the grip inside the hollow of the little soup-plate-sized steel shield.
УIТve got your back, Chief!Ф Edain called, and followed as he ran forward, Garbh at his heels growling like millstones.
The Cutters were all looking back over their shoulders at the sound of a second attack from who-knew-where when Rudi ran out of the night, and he thought they were probably wondering whether to shit or go blind. The crucial thing was not to let them get their balance back and their wits about them . . .
Then he was in among them, and time slowed. Vision flashed and blurred, expanding and shrinking at the same timeЧthreats, blades and bows, and targets, joints and faces, everything else not really seen at all. It was the gift of the Crow Goddess, only to be called upon in extremity.
A jarringthump as he dodged in under a lance-point and cut into the inside of a manТs elbow, where there was a gap between the mail on his upper arm and the leather vambrace on his forearm. The man rode on, shrieking and looking in disbelief at the spouting stump where his arm had been.
Rudi whirled away with dark drops spinning from the edge, and chopped into the hock of a horse. It screamed stunning-loud, rearing and pitching over backwards and bringing another down with it. A cloth-yard shaft wentwhirrt over his head and into a mounted archerТs chest and the shaft he had meant for Rudi disappeared into the night. AnotherТs arrow went wide as Garbh locked her fangs in the nose of the horse-archerТs mount and sent it into a rearing, bucking frenzy.
Two men coming at him on foot. A thrusting lunge as he ran, and his point went under the brim of a helmet and crunched through the thin bone at the bridge of a nose andcrack into a brainpan. His buckler stopped a full-armed cut, the force of it jarring the little shield back until the edge of the shete just touched his shoulder; then the Cutter was staggering off balance and the boss punched back into his jaw, and bone crumbling under it like candy cane in a careless grip . . .
УIngolf! Move, man, move!Ф
Father Ignatius abandoned the sword jammed tight in bone and spurred his horse forward, jerking his war-hammer free where it hung by its thong at his saddlebow. GodfreyТs armored shoulder struck the Cutter whoТd been about to chop down the dazed-looking man manacled to the yoke, but even in the dimness IngolfТs battered face looked blank and his eyes were haunted pits. The destrier reared and crow-hopped on its hind legs as the cleric slugged it to a desperate halt and wheeled it around.
Then in the midst of the melee the warrior-priestТs eyes went wide. Mary Havel was fighting sword-and-shield against a short one-eyed man Ignatius recognized from descriptions, but that wasnТt what made him stare.
УLord of Hosts!Ф he blurted.
Rudi Mackenzie was coming through the thick of the Cutter press, killing at every second step, eyes showing white all around pupils grown huge, teeth bared in a ululating banshee wail loud even in the clamor of battle. A swordsman staggered back and fell, his pelvis shattered by a kick. Another reeled away with half his face sheared off, hands scrabbling at the impossible wound. An enemy rider struck downward with the horrified desperation of a man finding a scorpion on his chest. Sparks flew in a blue-and-red shower where the MackenzieТs buckler knocked the shete away, and a thrust to the manТs armpit sank six inches deep in a snap like a frogТs tongue after a dragonfly. That turned into a backhand cut . . .
Even given surprise and shock the Cutters were tough fighters; heТd seen that in the battle with the Boise army two days ago, and theyТd rallied swiftly tonight. Now they began to give way, a first few blundering away in panic, or lashing their horses heedless into the night, others trying to break contact so that they could flee without taking a blade in the back.
Ignatius knew why, and his mind stuttered. A man could strike swiftly, or precisely, or very hard; a little more of one meant a little less of the others, and you had to do the best you could of all three at once. The Mackenzie was moving like moonlight on a waterfall despite all the handicaps of darkness and unknown ground, each blow laid like a surgeonТs, each landing with the lashing force that clove mail-links and lacquered bullhide . . . and then topped a manТs head like a boiled egg. HeТd seen Rudi fight before, and had been impressed, but that had only been a skirmish. Nothing like . . .
Like a sighted man among the blind,Ignatius thought numbly.Like some pagan God of war.
Then the fight was over, the survivors of the Cutter force throwing down their weapons and exploding outward in screeching panic. All but one; the one-eyed man landed a cut on the side of Mary HavelТs helmet. A sharpbonk rang, and the woman buckled at the knees. The victor raised his shete to kill.
Cranng!
The shete blow skidded off RudiТs longsword. Strong and skilled, Kuttner cut backhanded at the bigger manТs neck. The blow stopped halfway, and the longsword was through KuttnerТs body just below the breastbone, two feet of blood-slick steel glistening out his back.
And he smiled, with blood running black between his teeth. And he dropped his weapon and shield and reached out with both hands; they fastened on RudiТs neck and pulled his own body forward along the yard of swordblade until the cross-guard thumped against his ribs.
УIЧseeЧyou,Ф he rasped.
The voice had nothing to do with the bits of lung he spat out through a laughing mouth. It ground out the words like a mill that minced human bone, and it was gleeful.
УRavenЧSonЧofЧBear. IЧseeЧyour.Ф
Rudi lunged backwards, releasing the hilt of his sword, striking upward with hands bunched between KuttnerТs arms in a move skilled and quick and hugely strong. He might as well have struck a statue cast in bronze, and for a moment he froze in goggling surprise as a move heknew had to work failed totally. The blood-covered teeth grinned closer and closer, ready to gnaw off his face as the dead man giggled, and he began to scrabble desperately at the unhuman grip.
Behind Kuttner, Ingolf Vogeler moved at last, with the clumsy intensity of an exhausted ox. Staggering, his eyes showing nothing but blind determination and an even deeper hate, he drove the end of the heavy ashwood yoke across his shoulders into the back of KuttnerТs head.
Thunk.
Bone crunched, and the walking corpse froze for an instant, but its grip did not loosen. Rudi hammered at wrists and elbows, struck a desperate upward blow with the heel of his hand at the angle of the other manТs jaw. KuttnerТs head jerked to the side, then turned back at an angle, dangling loose but still grinning. The quick savage strength of RudiТs movements turned slow, a feeble scrabbling as his face turned purple, visible even in the darkness.
But Mary Havel was already coiling up off the ground, her sword held in the two-handed grip and one foot locked around the CutterТs ankle for leverage. The sharp blade landed behind the manТs knee, and cut all the way through to the kneecap. He buckled sideways and fell like a tree, taking Rudi with him.
And his hands still squeezed. Ignatius half fell out of the saddle, running forward to smash at the obscene shape; so did three or four others, and someone thumped him in the ribs with a blade that would have killed if he hadnТt been in armor. He ignored it. They all flailed at the dead man until the body was cut and battered into a bloody mass of meat and bone and organs, but even then the hands kept their grip on RudiТs throat until the tendons were slit and the bones they anchored on splintered.
A panting silence fell amid the latrine-salt-and-copper odors of violent death, with the sound of someone vomiting in the background and a few cries as the Boise cavalry made sure of the enemy wounded. Ignatius looked around, and saw Edain and Mathilda Arminger kneeling on either side of RudiТs limp form. The woman tore off his padded mail coif and pressed on either side of his larynx with the palms of her hands.
УItТs not crushed!Ф she cried, a little shrill with relief.
The Mackenzie coughed, and his eyelids fluttered open. Then he coughed again, deep and racking. Edain offered him a canteen; Ignatius didnТt have time to intervene before Rudi sucked at the water, coughed and snorted it out his nose, spat aside and drank more. The cleric released a breath he hadnТt realized he was holding.
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