"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 1 - The Misenchanted Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

THE MISENCHANTED SWORD
by LAWRENCE WATT-EVANS (1985)


[VERSION 1.1 (Oct 03 03). If you find and correct errors in the text, please
update the version number by 0.1 and redistribute.]


Dedicated to Richard Evan Reis and the old gang at P.I.C.

PART ONE

Wirikidor

CHAPTER 1

The marsh stank, with a sharp, briny stench that seemed to fill Valder's
head. He stared out across the maze of tall grass and shallow water for a long
moment and then reluctantly marched onward, into it. The ground gave beneath
him; his boot sank past the ankle in gray-brown muck. He muttered an
obscenity, then smiled weakly at his own annoyance and slogged forward.
The enemy, he knew, was no more than an hour behind him. The marsh was
nothing but a minor inconvenience by comparison.
To his left lay the open sea, and to his right was endless empty forest
that was probably full of northern patrols and sentinels, human or otherwise.
Behind him somewhere were the three northerners who had been pursuing him for
the past four days. Ahead of him, wet and green and stinking, lay the coastal
marshes.
He could, he supposed, have turned to the right and avoided the marshes,
tried to lose his pursuers in the forest, but he had been running through
forests for four days without being able to shake them off his trail. At least
the marshes would be different.
After half a dozen long, slow steps through the mud, he struck a patch of
solid ground and hauled himself up onto it; dirty seawater poured from his
boots, which had not been watertight in more than a sixnight. The marsh grass
rustled loudly as he pushed his way across the little hummock; he froze,
peered back over his shoulder, and, seeing nothing but the unbroken line of
pine trees, sank to the ground for a moment's rest.
The marsh was probably a mistake, he told himself as the foul smell
saturated his nostrils. He could not move through it without making noise, it
seemed -- the rustling grass was far more audible than the crunch of pine
needles, and the suck of mud wasn't much better -- and the enemy sorcerer
almost certainly had some sort of spell or talisman that augmented his
hearing. Even the other two northerners might have hearing more than normally
acute; from what he had seen of their movements, Valder was quite certain that
at least one of them was shatra -- half man, half demon, though human in
appearance. That eerily smooth, flowing motion was unmistakable.
All three might be shatra; the demon warriors could disguise their
movements if they chose. One of his pursuers was a sorcerer, but he had heard
it said around the barracks that some sorcerers were shatra. It seemed grossly