"Factotum" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cornish D M)18testudoe(s) heavy-ended bludgeon, five to seven feet long, knobbled with metal studs or wooden knots and giving a powerful and nasty blow. A very old pattern of weapon finding its way into Soutland culture from the Lauslands-who took it from the passionate folk of Ing-testudoes are traditionally made of wood and as such provide some protection from the arcs of a fulgar if you should ever choose to take on such a foe. THE first sensation to puncture Rossamund's numbness was the shouting of many voices from every cardinal; angry cries surrounded them, accompanied by the dire pops of several firelocks. NO! Fransitart! Craumpalin! Europe! Sight still reeling, he felt rough hands grip him hard about each arm, lifting him well off his feet. At once he reckoned Fransitart and Craumpalin had endured the blast to come gather him, but there was something unkind in the handling, and the sweaty pungence that accompanied the two heavy figures hefting him was frighteningly foreign. Senses clarifying in his alarm, Rossamund saw his captors as strangers man-shaped and man-sized, robed in black and wearing white oval masks striped with two blood-dark bars. Rossamund's innards froze. Fictlers… With a coughing growl he exerted his strength, and, to a duet of startled yelps, pulled his arms together, throwing both masklings into each other with a fatty slap. Skulls collided, masks cracked. Rossamund wrested himself free as the two would-be captors toppled to the ground. Dropped onto his knees, he spluttered and blinked at the fume of dust and powder smoke rolling about him and drifting down the incline. Thick as it was, the roil was quickly settling, revealing the landaulet between the trunks well above and to the left, the carriage broken and tipped back, its thills now splinders. Some large pallid bulk half hung over the road-edge between two pines. With a choke of grief Rossamund realized it was Candle, ripped and fatefully still. Sobbing in a rising rage, he clawed desperately at the slope, slipping on the mat of needles as he tried to climb, pulling on thistles and barely sprouted treelings. In confused and frantic fear, he cast about the trees for his masters. No Fransitart. No Craumpalin. No Europe. There was a great furor on the unseen side of the smashed carriage, a desperate struggle of life and limb. Three penetrating zzacks! rang clear, eliciting muffled cries of agony. With this came a splash as a heavy thing slid into the mucky drain and two fellows in white masks scurried back down the road, hands over heads and wearing the scorching of a fulgar's defense. The Branden Rose emerged swiftly from behind the landaulet, shockingly bloodied and sporting a limp, yet very much alive and alert. Her eyes deadly slits, her fuse already in hand, she did not heed her young factotum struggling through the saplings and berry runners below. In the intensity of his relief, Rossamund let out a bubbling, choking laugh, yet the sound of it was blanked by the staccato popping of musket fire bursting with white puffs from among the dark conifers high upon the farther bank of the culvert where hidden musketeers plied fire down upon his mistress. Rossamund threw himself to the hillside by the roots of a tree, glimpsing Europe stagger and drop out of sight beyond the matted brink. |
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