"ClaytonEmery-Netheril01-SwordPlay" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

coming on winter, especially here in the high country bordering the Barren Mountains. The
thin wind that sighed and soughed around his legs was cool, but would bite after sundown—if
he were still alive to feel it. Away from the warm cliff, patches of snow hugged the northern
side of the rocks. It was all rocks here above the tree line, which was a clean cut, as if by the
knife of a titan. Sunbright wondered if the gods were closer up here, and if so, to whom he
should pray. Garagos, god of war, to give him strength in the fight to come? Or Tyche, Lady
Luck? Somehow neither seemed appropriate, so he sent a common prayer for help and
guidance to Chauntea, the Earthmother. She was laid out before his feet, miles and miles of
scrubby trees down a long sweeping valley over which red-tailed hawks and vultures soared.
Sunbright might be visiting her soonest, after all. But if so, he wouldn't go alone. A grunt
from below brought his sword up.
They skulked out of the tree line, seven of them. Orcs, but not the usual variety.
These had gray-green skin, lank black hair, pug noses, and long knotted arms. They
moved warily, watching him and not charging to crush his skull as the usual idiots did.
But this lot, seen for the first time close up, were oddly neat. They wore actual
uniforms, almost like human soldiers. Tunics of various leathers had been dyed a
consistent lichen gray, and painted on each breast was a not-so-smeary red hand of
five spread fingers. Rather than go barefoot, and thus cripple themselves on the
scree, they wore sturdy, scuffed boots that came to their knobby knees. And each orc
soldier wore a rusty kettle helmet, round with a short brim. In their hands trailed clubs
studded with black obsidian, which Sunbright knew to be sharper than his own steel
blade, for the layered stone presented not one but a dozen razor edges.
Sunbright could have shot his few arrows, but didn't bother. Somehow it didn't
seem right on this momentous, lonely day. He'd work with what the gods had given
him, take the contest as it came.
Still, to die now seemed unfair when he'd been so careful to cover his tracks,
stepping from stone to stone all morning. How had they discovered him? Were the
orcs' gods favouring them?
The orcs grunted again and stopped, consulting about how to attack. They could
see their prey, a young human male, tall and gangly, yet laid with ropy muscle. His
hair was sun-bright blond, shaved at the temples, then gathered into a topknot from
which dangled a short tail. He wore a faded linen shirt that fell to his knees, stout
boots of many leather straps and iron rings, and a jerkin made of brown- and white-
blotched goatskin, laced across his chest. A rolled blanket was carried over one
shoulder, a longbow and quiver over the other, along with his scabbard,
But most curious was his sword. As long as his arm, the blade widened at the tip
to make a graceful arc, its back face deeply cut into a hook. It looked more like an
elongated brush cutter than a sword, and gave the orcs pause.
"You like this sword?" The young man shook his weapon, impatient to fight, to get
the trial over. "Its name is Harvester of Blood. Come up, orcish offal, and hear it sing
its name and that of its wielder, Sunbright Steelshanks!"
The ritual battle curses didn't seem to impress the orcs, who merely fanned out
along the short slope below him, from the rock he'd propped in the trail to the cliff wall
at his right elbow. Strangely, they said nothing until the captain, which had a red hand
painted on a placard in the band of its helmet, bellowed, "Rag-faa!"
Then they charged, howling.
Careful not to lift his feet lest he slip on the scree and pebbles, Sunbright hoisted
the long blade high over his right shoulder and simultaneously scooted his left foot
forward for balance. Then he contracted like a coiled spring. The foot snapped back,
and the sword came almost to meet it. Caught between was an orc that had