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

the floor. Tobo's father, Murgen, calls them brownies after
little folk recalled from his youth. There had to be twenty
different races of them around, from no bigger than a thumb to half
a man high. They really did do work when nobody was looking. That
drove Sleepy crazy. It meant she had to work harder to think up
chores to keep the Company's villains out of trouble.

An overpowering stench pervaded One-Eye's house. It came
from the mash for his still.

The devil himself looked like a shrunken head the shrinker had
not bothered to separate from its body. One-Eye was a little bit of
a thing. Even in his prime he had not been big. At two hundred and
some years old, with both legs and most of one arm in the grave, he
looked more like a shriveled monkey than a human being.

I said, "I hear tell you're trying to get some
attention again, old man." I knelt. One-Eye's one eye
opened. It focused on me. Time had been kind in that respect. His
vision remained good.

He opened his toothless mouth. At first nothing came out. He
tried to raise a mahogany spider of a hand. He did not have the
strength.

Tobo shuffled his feet and muttered at the things in the
corners. There are ten thousand strange things infesting Hsien and
he knows every one by name. And they all worship him. For me this
intersection with the hidden world has been the most troubling
development of our stay in the Land of Unknown Shadows.

I liked them better when they were still unknown.

Outside Skryker or Black Shuck or another Black Hound began
raising a racket. Others replied. The uproar moved southward,
toward the shadowgate. I willed Tobo to go investigate.

He stayed put, all questions and nags. He was about to become a
major pain in the ass. "How's your grandmother?"
I asked. Preemptive strike. "Why don't you
check?" Gota was not in the room. Usually she was,
determinedly trying to do for One-Eye even though she had grown as
feeble as he was.

One-Eye made a noise, moved his head, tried to raise that hand
again. He saw the boy leave the room. His mouth opened. He managed
to force out words in little bursts. "Croaker. This is
the . . . last . . . She's
done. I feel it. Coming. Finally."