"Roger Taylor - Nightfall 1 - Farnor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Taylor Roger)

The noise came nearer. Farnor stepped back further to give himself more space in which to manoeuvre.
Whatever might be coming towards him, he knew that to attempt to flee from a predator would be to
draw it after him inexorably.

The shrubbery parted.

тАШRannick!тАЩ Farnor exclaimed in a mixture of anger and relief as he lowered his staff. тАШYou frightened me
to death.тАЩ

The newcomerтАЩs lip curled peevishly. It was his characteristic expression. He ignored FarnorтАЩs outburst.

тАШWhatтАЩre you doing up here, young Yarrance?тАЩ he said, twisting FarnorтАЩs family name into a sneer.

Despite his relief at encountering a person instead of some blood-crazed animal, Farnor took no delight
in RannickтАЩs arrival. Few in the community liked the man but, for reasons he could not identify, Farnor
felt a particular, and deep, antipathy to him. It was not without some irony, however, that while on the
whole Rannick reciprocated the communityтАЩs opinion of him he seemed to have a special regard for
Farnor тАУ in so far as he had regard for anyone. For although life had not presented Rannick with any
special disadvantages, his general demeanour exuded the bitterness and envy of a man unjustly
dispossessed of some great fortune. When he spoke, it was as if to praise or admire something would be
to risk choking himself to death. And when he undertook a task it was as if to create something willingly,
or for its own sake, might wither his hands.

тАШDonтАЩt let him near the cows,тАЩ FarnorтАЩs mother would say if she saw him wandering near the farm. тАШThat
face of his will sour the milk for a week.тАЩ

He had wilfully neglected the quite adequate portion of land that his father had left him and now he
earned his keep by casual labouring on the valley farms and, it was generally agreed, by some judicious
thieving and poaching, though he had never been caught at such.

Worse, it was rumoured that on his periodic disappearances from the valley he was thick with travellers
and the like from over the hill.

Apart from his invariably unpleasant manner however, perhaps his most damning feature was his
intelligence; his considerable intelligence. In others such a gift would have been a boon, an affirmation, but
in Rannick it was what truly set him apart. It gleamed with mocking scorn in his permanently narrowed
eyes when they were not full of anger or malice, and it could lend a keen and vicious edge to his tongue,
too subtle to provoke an immediate angry rebuke but cruel and long-lasting in its wounding nonetheless.

And, perhaps, there were other things.

Farnor remembered a soft, incomplete conversation between his mother and father overheard one night
when he had crept down the stairs to eavesdrop on that mysterious world of adult life that awoke only as
the children went to sleep.

тАШRannick has his grandfather in him, IтАЩd swear. He knows and sees more than the rest of us.тАЩ His
fatherтАЩs voice, muffled.

Ear close to the door, Farnor had sensed his mother nodding in agreement. тАШItтАЩs to be hoped not,тАЩ she