"Zimmer,.Paul.Edwin.-.A.Gathering.of.HerosUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zimmer Paul Edwin)

The Sword of Kings and Itelindt rose flaming to meet it.
Radiance filled the frail black film. A shrill screech grated their ears, and the demon flared, faded, and was gone. A sudden burst of overpowering stench made even the etf-horses snort, and Tahion gagged.
Then the night was clean about them. Tuarim Mac Elathan laughed.
Istvan drifted in strange visions of unicorns and flowers and music, and vague and wonderful beauties: suddenly he came awake, fully refreshed and alert. A slight figure darted silently from his side to vanish in the shadows.
He sat up, feeling by habit for his sword, and looking quickly about. All around him the other heroes were rising, and the white horses were trotting down from the trees atop the hill.
He cast off the soft blankets, wondering a little at their
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feelЧthey were of no cloth he had ever touched or smelted beforeЧand rose, shivering slightly in the chill.
The bed on which he had slept was a thick, springy mat of living grass.
Bright moons raced among the stars, silver lights swung from the trees. The door of the mound was closed.
There seemed to be only a few elves about, but these were so soft-footed, and vanished and appeared so quickly, that there might have been thousands in the surrounding woods and he would not have known. One appeared beside him as his horse came trotting up, and courteously helped him into his saddle.
Four elves were mounted and riding with them; when all the heroes and dwarves were mounted, two of these were the first to leave the clearing, and horse after horse followed them, running like deer.
When Istvan's own steed darted off in his turn, the Seynyorean found himself riding next to Carroll Mac Lir. After a moment, Istvan turned to ask the question that had formed in his mind.
"I thought Tahion said that we need fear no spells from these elves? That did not seem like a natural sleep!" The big man looked at him in surprise, and then moonlight showed teeth flashing in a smile.
"So you can talk after all!" said the Y'goran. "I was beginning to wonder! But that was not what Tahion said. He said that they were used to men. And so they are. And so we had nothing to fear from their spells. They put a light sleep-spell on us, aye, and broke it again at the proper time. And I have no doubt they shaped our dreams for us, too. Simple, harmless magic, to keep us from lying awake and missing sleep, and to see to it that we all woke up at once.
"Now a wild elf, seeing that you needed sleep, might put a sleep-spell on you, and then forget to take it offЧor he might decide that tired as you were, you needed to sleep for a month, or a yearЧor even a lifetime. More likely, he would put a spell on you to keep you from needing sleep or feeling wearinessЧand then when the spell wore off you might drop down dead from exhaustion. Around wild elves you never say, 'I wish I could sleep for a week,' or 'I wish I could dance forever.' They do not tire and they do not age, and they have no way of knowing either how brief or how frail our
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lives are. They have as many curious legends about us as we have about them."
Trees were passing in a blur, the horses drawing further apart. As Carroll finished speaking, his steed bore him away. The big man turned in the saddle, waved, and shouted something, too far away for Istvan to make out words.
From somewhere ahead came the deep, rumbling bellow of an angry troll.
Istvan's Hastur-blade flew free. The barest hint of need-fire glowed in the depths of the steel.
On sped the horse, through shadow and moonlight, while the roars of the troll grew louder, and the sword's flame brighter.
Suddenly, Istvan saw itЧa vast, manlike shape with glowing eyes, standing in the midst of a huge moonlit clearing. And as he watched through blurred trees, a cloud-white horse darted through the clearing, glowing in the light of the several moons.
The troll hurled itself into a blundering charge, but the elf-steed eluded it with ease, and then another darted into the clearing, and with a roar of baffled rage the monster turned and bore down on the second horseЧbut like a blur in the moonlight, the fleet steed was gone.
A clump of brush hid the creature for a moment, then the clearing opened out and Istvan's sword blazed in his hand as the huge red-eyed shape rushed roaring; then the horse was across the clearing and the troll had turned in vain pursuit of another ghostly horse.
On sped the elf-steed between night-hidden trees at a speed its rider could not guess. Spears of moonlight pierced the forest: silver columns glimpsed as his mount rushed past. It seemed a wind blew in his face, but he knew that it was but the speed at which his steed ran. The moonbeams' flicker hurt his eyes.
Hours passed in a giddying whirl of moonbeams. Then the elf-horse slowed, and Istvan saw Ethellin the Wise standing beside the path.
Patches of white in the darkness became men on fog-white steeds that wove through the wood to crowd around the frail figure of the Sea-Elf. They stopped so suddenly that Istvan's throat pinched with fear that Ethellin would be trampled.
Men, elves and dwarves were packed together where the
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horses had stopped in ordered ranks. No cavalry in the world, thought Istvan, could have closed ranks more perfectly.
There was silence in his ears where wind had been. Then, from the darkness of the wood, tiny sounds of leaves told him that the creatures of the forest were about their nightly business.
But then it seemed to Istvan that there was something not quite right about the sounds. Before he could decide what it was, the voice of Ethellin the Wise, gentle and sweet as a distant horn-call, drowned both sound and thought.
"There is a demon in the woods ahead, and since we cannot depend on our speed to escape it, we must be prepared to fight. It will not be wanting to attack so large a group as this, but if we went past it at a run it would doubtless be able to take a straggler or two." As he spoke, there was a sudden flare of light as thirty swords, blazing with need-fire, flashed from their scabbards almost as one. The elf smiled.
"Tuarim is watching it now, with Dorialith and your friend Prince Tahion. But we shall go on slowly for a time. It is a strong demon: if we have to fight we will no doubt win, but I fear some of us would die in the process."
Some of the men whistled, and Istvan stroked his beard thoughtfully. The Sea-Elves were reputed to be near as powerful as the Hasturs, and certainly Ethellin the Wise was among the greatest of them. A demon that he feared to attack must be a potent one, indeed!
Suddenly, he realised what was so odd about the sounds from the forest. All those thousands of tiny pattering feet were going the same way, running past the company of heroes, away from the terror in the woods ahead.
Ethellin turned and his horse turned with him and began to walk softly at his side. Seeing this, Istvan slid down from his own mount's back and walked, his Hastur-blade glittering in his hand. Since the elf-horse had no reins, he could not lead him in the ordinary way, but he was sure that it would follow, and it did.
His legs were stiff and sore, but stretching them was a relief. An ordinary horse would have had to be walked many times on such a ride as this. It had made him feel guilty.
The need-fire of their blades cast a circle of light around them. At first there was shocked scurrying of tiny feet at their approach, as frightened creatures fled from the unexpected
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light. After a time, this died away, and they walked in uncanny silence.
Lights flashed through the trees ahead, and watching, Istvan saw mist-white horses grow, and soon Tuarim Mac Elathan and his companions rode to meet them. The swords of the elves burned with blue-white flame, but the Sword of Kings that Tahion bore glowed pale green like sunlight through a leaf.
Tuarim Mac Elathan's merry laughter shattered the silence.
"Sure and I thought it was dawn!" he said. "Or perhaps that a moon or two had decided to try the forest instead of the sky!" He sobered and nodded grimly at them. "It's been many a year since I've seen a gathering of such blades as these."
Dorialith slid from his horse and walked, one hand on its neck, beside Ethellin, but Tuarim Mac Elathan stayed mounted. The Sea-Elves' swords shone like ice, a crystal glitter unlike the other blades.
Beyond the circle of their swords' silver light, dense shadows shrouded the wood. Men's feet moving over leaves made a constant low rustling. But that was the only sound Istvan could hear; neither beast nor bird stirred in the bushes. All had fled the fear that hunted there.
The path broadened ahead, and starlight filtered through the thinned branches. Istvan was glad to see the stars. Tahion and Arthfayel were walking their horses beside his, and a little behind them Starn and Flann, and the islander, Ingulf, whose sword glowed with the same crystal light as those of the Sea-Elves. Istvan remembered what he had heard from Arthfayel: Frostfire, the sword was named,^and like frost indeed was the cold glitter that lit the night about it.
The dwarves walked behind, stumping along on their short legs, with young Garahis of Ordan in their midst.
A faint, sickening odour fouled the air. Tahion's blade glowed bright gold, and Istvan felt that same crawling on his nerves that he had felt before on the Dark Border, when shadows out of the Dark World had come hunting men.