"Factotum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornish D M)

THE SWARTY HOBNAG

"The long-gone have not been put here just for you to eat," Rossamund pressed, self-doubt beginning to gnaw.

"What are thee to prat at me about mine own doings!" the Hobnag coughed, its voice somewhere between a belch and a wheeze. "What are thee with thy rosy cheeks, thy puffy lips and thy dandy naughtbringerling drapes? Thee clearly lives false among the menly ones. Dost they love thee like thee was their own?" it heckled, then spat.

"I am Rossamund, known to the Lapinduce, whose realm you are spoiling, watched over by the sparrow-duke, and servant to the Branden Rose," Rossamund retorted, the words just spilling out. "Nought but bad can come from your worthless digging. My mistress will not be so kind."

"Hark thee, the little blithely hinderling, quothing thy poxy masters!" it spat. "I fully ken whose borders I invade, Pinky! What might the Largoman do to me so far from his hiding hole? Has he sent thee to chasten me?" it continued in a mockingly saccharin voice. "Or hast thy sparrow-prince doomed thee to bring us all to harmony?"

"There is a writ taken against you…"

"Bah! Thou blithely ones always wheedle and nag at me!"

"You will be found and killed," Rossamund pressed, regretting already entering into parley with this wretched thing. "You must go-"

"Humbuggler!" it barked. "Why don't thee!"

At this the foul thing sprang from the hole it had fashioned. Without hesitation, Rossamund threw the beedlebane. Yet the nicker leaped higher, narrowly clearing the glaring sickly orange burst of the potive as it struck the globe of an intervening crownstone with a whoomp! In that single bound, the Hobnag covered the five-yard gap between them and more still, landing adroitly behind Rossamund. Before the young factotum could turn, it struck him hard in the side with a mighty backhanded swat, lifting him clear off his feet and sending him smacking, back and shoulders, into a crownstone ten feet uphill. The carven rock cracked with the blow of Rossamund's fall, and the heavy top slipped and tottered. Rossamund sagged back against the memorial. Weird lights crowded his vision's edges, and an iron taste rose in the back of his throat.

Head craning to see the fall of its victim, the blunt-faced monster shambled up and past the bubbling remains of the burst beedlebane, thinking perhaps its diminutive foe done in.

Dragging himself out of the blankness that sought to submerge him, Rossamund pulled up his legs to stand, pains flashing all about his battered body. With a dry, stony pop! the top of the crownstone came loose and toppled directly over the young factotum. Rossamund's senses were a sudden clarity as he reached into his strength and caught the heavy thing in both arms, holding it before it could squash him. He heaved to his feet, the stone still in his grasp, as the cunning Hobnag rushed him with loping leggy strides. Head craning back and jaws stretched impossibly wide with teeth fully exposed, it charged like some jutting jagged saw, seeking to carve Rossamund to mince and jelly.Yet, with strangely indifferent lucidity, Rossamund stepped aside, swinging the crown-piece like some battering post, striking the nicker on throat and jaw to send it colliding with the broken base.The foul creature reeled and stumbled, lurching back down the boneyard hill. Tripping on another crownstone, it came to a stop, parched black skin on its left temple torn to reveal lurid flesh seeping in the moonlight.

"So thee has found thy strength…," the Hobnag muttered, facing him cautiously now.

Chest heaving, hurting sharply with every gasp, Rossamund caught his breath.Though the shadowy hint of its face was a dismal blank, the young factotum somehow perceived a kind of bafflement in the wretched thing.

"I want food, not fighting," it seethed, and with that it sprang nimbly away and hared across the flank of the hill, attempting escape between the stones.

Mindlessly, Rossamund dared his strength and with an almighty heave flung the crown-piece at the retreating creature, throwing it astonishingly far to catch the Hobnag a glancing cuff upon its hip. An audible crack! broke the night quiet and the wretch tumbled to the mold, pitching head over end to disappear among the grave-markers. Seizing a caste of Frazzard's powder, Rossamund hurried as fast as his own bashed body would allow through the tall slender crownstones like some avenging heldin glorified so often in his old pamphlets. Not far on, where he thought he saw the nicker fall, he found the crownstone piece, but the Hobnag was gone. He spied a glimpse of it, staggering through the stones toward the iron-bound entrance on the opposite side of the hill.

"What good does it do to make everymen your prey?" the young factotum cried futilely after it.

"Humbuggler!" he heard it hiss at him in turn. Struggling over the iron-arched gate, the thing was gone into the night.

Rossamund thought to follow it, but he did not have a single notion what he would do if he caught up with the creature. To kill in the passion and mayhem of a fight was one thing, to destroy by cold choice another, and that he did not think he could do.

His perception swam and oblivion crowded.

Something sharp and deep hurt in his right side.

His back pained.

He knelt for a moment in the graveyard soil and took as deep a breath as his aches would allow.

A terrifying, reedy wailing, an alto voice of sorrow and rage rose and fell on the shifting airs.

Then silence.

No other sound punctuated the quiet, that complete and buzzing silence that seemed to follow every fight; even the crickets were still.

Anxious to get back to Craumpalin waiting so stoutly, Rossamund clambered to his feet, gathered up the fallen crown-piece in one arm as if it were a light thing and went to the partly exhumed grave. Hastily kicking the new-turned soil back into the hole, Rossamund refused to look too closely at the ashen dome of the putrefying head poking through where the Hobnag had been digging. Evidently, the dear departed were humed here feet-first too, just as in Winstermill, but that was already more than he wanted to know. Returning the crownstone piece to its original stump, he gingerly scaled the wall and returned up the hill and back to his watch.

All twinges and stabbing aches, he looked to the slow-spinning heavens; the Signals had barely moved. From when he left till his return and the great struggle for life and limb in between had taken little more than one quarter of an hour.

At the camp, he found Craumpalin sitting in a sagging huddle propped against the musketoon and nodding in sleep, unmolested and serene. With a wry sniff, he thought to wake the old salt, tell of his exploits and receive some skillful care.Yet what was there to say? Smiling ruefully to himself, he left the old fellow to his slumber.

Probing his flanks and chest, he sought the manner of his injuries for himself. No cuts or gashes, no blood, just a very sore trunk. Fossicking a gray vial of levenseep from his stoup, he took a swig. His mouth was filled with a taste like fallen leaves that spread an inward cheer, dulling pain, lifting weary thoughts. Invigorated, the young factotum sat cross-legged by the landaulet's rear ladeboard wheel with the musketoon across his lap.To the soft sounds of Europe's regular slumbering breaths and Craumpalin's restless grumbles, he settled himself and-almost as if nothing untoward had ever happened-waited for his stint to end.