"Sara Douglass - Redemption 3 - Crusader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

"Ahhh," he groaned, and rolled over, weeping with the pain and the loss and the overwhelming
humiliation. Humiliation, not so much from the demonic rapes he'd been forced to endure, although that
was part of it, but from the realisation that everything he'd done, and everything he'd thought
himself master of during the past few thousand years had been a lie. He'd been a tool and a pawn as
much as had the sweatiest and stupidest peasant and now he'd been disposed of as easily.
The Maze — well taught by the Star Dance — was the hardest and cruellest master of all.
WolfStar — Enchanter-Talon, feared by every Icarii in existence.
WolfStar — crazed murderer, loathed by scores of generations of Icarii.
WolfStar — Dark Man, Dear Man, friend and ally of Gorgrael the Destroyer.
WolfStar — lover and ultimate destroyer of Niah.
WolfStar — manipulator of the entire world and all who lived within it.
WolfStar — utter, utter Fool.
A rat ran over his right foot, scratching deeply into his flesh as it went, but WolfStar paid it no
heed. Over the past hours (days? weeks? he did not know) countless creatures had
scrambled over him, trampled him, urinated on him, nibbled, bit and tasted him, and yet none had
done him the kindness of killing him.
All WolfStar wanted was to die ... to escape the utter humiliation his existence had
become. But no thing or one would grant him death in this world of death made incarnate — this
damned, cursed Maze. Bleakness swarmed constantly over him, and madness probed intermittently at
his mind: the hours when the Demons raged drove him to the brink of insanity, but never (oh please,
stars, let the horror tip me over!), never beyond into the oblivion of total insanity.
Why? Why couldn't he become one of these mindless creatures that swarmed incoherently
and incontinently through the Maze? All WolfStar wanted was to become mindless, because then he
would feel no pain.
WolfStar's fingers scrabbled over his chest, feeling again the clotting blood of Caelum. He gagged,
sickened by the feel, as also by the damned persistence of the blood.
He couldn't wipe it off, it wouldn't go away. It wouldn't even dry to a scab that he could scrape off.
WolfStar was marked by Caelum's blood, and he wondered if that was what protected him.
What had happened to the boy? Why had he walked onto the point of Qeteb's blade?
WolfStar had turned the horrific moments of Caelum's death over and over in his mind, and yet he
still could not understand them. What had gone so wrong? Why hadn't Caelum fought back?
Or, at the least, why hadn't he made an effort to escape?

WolfStar could crawl no more. He propped himself up against a wall, holding his belly with one
hand, dragging air into his lungs.
Suddenly Caelum walked about the corner and came directly towards him.
He had a beatific smile on his face.
 "Caelum StarSon!" Qeteb screamed, and stood in his stirrups and raised his sword.
Caelum, now directly before WolfStar, turned and stared at the horror approaching, stared at
the rearing, plunging creature above him, and at the Demon screaming on its back.
"Oh, how I love you," he said.
"No!" Qeteb shrieked, driven beyond the realms of anger, not only by Caelum's words, but
also by the serene expression on his face.
The Demon drove down his sword.
WolfStar could not believe it. As the sword plunged downwards, Caelum held out his
hand and seized the blade.
It made not a whit of difference.
The sword sliced through Caelum's hand and plunged into his chest, driving Caelum back
against WolfStar, who grunted with shock.
Qeteb leaned his entire weight down on the sword, twisting it as deep as he could go, feeling