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

River Cotras and the road that runs along the river gorge. Used to
be a major caravanserai, before Kane raided it years back. They
never rebuilt the place, and my guess is it's all in ruins now."
Weed nodded. "Yeah, I remember Kane talking about that
raid. Must have been about eight years back, because it happened
just before I joined Kane."
"I was there," stated Braddeyas with crusty pride. He had
raided these mountains even before Kane had come to them ten
years before. His hair was grey-streaked and thinning now, which
said something about the man, for the mountain outlaws seldom
died in bed.
All too true for the others of Kane's once powerful bandтАФmen
cut to pieces by mercenary swords when Pleddis encircled their
camp. This handful had slashed their way through his trap, but
three days of desperate flight still found the free-captain close on
their heels. Nor was he likely to quit their trail. The Combine
cities of Lartroxia's coastal plain had set a high bounty on Kane,
and Pleddis meant to claim it.
"If its walls are standing, the inn will give us shelter until
dawn," Frassos pointed out. He coughed thinly, wincing as pain
shot through cracked ribs.
"You know the way, Darros, then lead us there," Weed
decided. "Daylight's just about gone."
 "It is that," someone muttered.
Night was closing over the mountains on great raven's wings.
Shadow lay deep beneath the blue-grey pines and frost-fired
hardwoods which shouldered over the narrow trail. Darkness
hungrily swallowed the valleys and hollows that spread out below
themтАФpools of gloom from which waves of mist rose to storm
the wooded slopes and poor over the limestone ridges.
A battered, gut-weary handful of hunted menтАФruthless,
half-wild outlaws hounded by killers as remorseless as
themselves. Shivering in their dirt and blood-caked bandages,
they rode on in grim determination, thoughts numb to pain and
fearтАФalthough both phantoms rode beside themтАФintent on
nothing more than the deadly necessity of flight. Flight from the
hired bounty killers who followed almost on the sound of their
hoofbeats.
They were well mounted; their gear was chosen from the
plunder of uncounted raids. But now their horses stumbled with
fatigue, their gear was worn and travel-stained, their weapons
notched and dulled from hard fighting. They were the last. The
last on this side of Hell of those who had ridden behind Kane, as
feared and daring an outlaw pack as had ever roamed the
Myceum Mountains.
No more would they set upon travellers along the lonely
mountain passes, pillage merchants' camps, terrorize isolated
settlements. Never again would they sweep down from the
dark-pined slopes and lay waste to villages of the coastal plains,
then dart back into the secret fastness of the mountains where the