"Cook, Glen - Black Company 10 - Soldiers Live" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

about character. She insists that power corrupts. Inevitably. She
has only her own history by which to judge. And she sees only the
dark side of everything. Even so, she remains one of Tobo's
teachers. Because, despite her bleak outlook, she retains the silly
romantic streak that brought her here with me.

I did not try to keep up with the boy. Time definitely has
slowed me. And has left me with an ache for every one of the
thousands of miles this battered old corpse has trudged. And it has
equipped me with an old man's talent for straying off the
subject.

The boy never stopped chattering about the Black Hounds, fees,
hobs and hobyahs and other creatures of the night that I have never
seen. Which is all right. The few he has brought around have all
been ugly, smelly, surly, and all too eager to copulate with humans
of any sex or sexuality. The Children of the Dead claim that
yielding is not a good idea. So far discipline has held.

The evening was chill. Both moons were up. Little Boy was full.
The sky was totally clear except for a circling owl being pestered
by what appeared to be a brace of night-flying rooks. One of those,
in turn, had some smaller black bird skipping along behind it,
darting in and out as it prosecuted reprisals for some corvine
trangression. Or just for the hell of it, the way my sister-in-law
would do.

Likely none of the flyers were actual birds.

A huge something loomed beyond the nearest house. It made
snorting noises and shuffled away. What I made out looked vaguely
like the head of a giant duck. The earliest of the conquering
Shadowmasters had possessed a bizarre turn of humor. This big,
slow, goofy thing was a killer. Among the worst of the others were
a giant beaver, a crocodile with eight legs and a pair of arms and
many variations of the themes of killer cattle, horses and ponies,
most of which spend their daytimes hiding underwater.

The most bizarre beings were created by the nameless
Shadowmaster now recalled as the First One or the Master of Time.
His raw material had consisted of shadows off the glittering plain,
which in Hsien are known as the Host of the Unforgiven Dead. It
seems appropriate that Hsien be called the Land of Unknown
Shadows.

A long feline roar ripped the night. That would be Big Ears or
his sister Cat Sith. By the time I reached One-Eye's place
the Black Hounds had begun to vocalize, too.

One-Eye's house was scarcely a year old. The little