"Karl Edward Wagner - Ravens Eyrie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

his sword. Must of hit it fifty times, till the stick busted and the
snake was half flattened out. Had to be dead; we didn't think any
more about it.
"Long about the end of second watch we all woke upтАФVaul, it
was a scream to chill your guts! There was the kid flopping out of
his blanket roll, that damn black snake with its fangs buried in his
neck. Hell, its head was bigger than your fist and full of venom,
and I don't guess the kid lived long enough for us to stir up the
fire.
"After that night I never trusted a dead snake. Always hack
them to chunks, no matter how dead they look. Except just now,"
he concluded bitterly.
"He can't of got far," Eriall judged. "Hadn't had no time, and
crippled up like he was."
Pleddis grunted and inspected the window casement. Lanterns
flashed from the ground below. "What do you see?" he called
down.
Nattios bawled back, "Nothing. No marks below. We're
looking along the wall."
The mountaineer was no fool at tracking, Pleddis knew. "Well,
look closer. There's blood on the ledge here."
"No. Nothing," came the reply after a pause.
"There's rocks down there," Eriall said, craning his squat neck
to look down.
"Yeah, and there's frost, too," Nattios retorted gruffly. "Good
as sand for leaving tracks. Ain't nothing."
"Well, Kane couldn't have crawled down that wall, anyway,"
the stocky lieutenant declared. "Mail that big couldn't scale these
stones even if he wasn't busted up. The blood's a false trail."
Pleddis's laugh returned. It was not pleasant. "Kane could have
done it. He's not lying in bed there. He either went out the
window or out the door. I got men at every exit, so if there's no
tracks outside lie has to be hiding inside. Won't do him any good,
because we'll find him."
"Could be he got out somewhere else, mixed his trail in with
our tracks," Eriall persisted. "We came in from all around the
sides, you know."
"Could be. But I figure Kane didn't have the time to do
anything too fancy. He's hiding in here somewhere. If he's not,
we'll pick up his trail with the dogs they got here. Long as we
keep him from the horses, he won't get far."
Stundorn's stubbled face was strange. "Captain, you're sure he
was just faking he was dead, then?"
Pleddis glared at him. "Dead men don't run out on you."
Abruptly he scowled. "Unless some bastard slipped back and
stole the corpse for the bounty!" He thought carefully. "No, I can
account for all of us, and for the bunch that stay here, too, Still, if
I find some bastard's pulling a fast one, there's going to be one
more head in that salt pack, and it won't cost the Merchants'
League a copper!"