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

scampered up quicker than its fellows. Keen-eyed, Sunbright avoided the steel helm
that might nick his blade. He struck at the juncture of neck and shoulder, steel
shaving the orc's collarbone and hunting a major vein. He struck hard, but not hard
enough to fetch up the blade in bone. The blow was perfect. At the solid cut, the orc's
blood squirted in three directions. The creature dropped more from shock than the
actual blow, though the wound would kill within a minute.
Sunbright didn't linger to gloat, or even watch. Conserving every ounce of strength
for the battle yet to come, he ripped the blade free and slung it backhand at the next
encroaching orc.
Harvester lived up to its name. The deep hook in the blade lodged under an orc's
upraised arm. Slashed in the armpit, the orc was knocked off-balance, away from
Sunbright, then dragged back by the boy's twisting yank. The hook tore more flesh,
skinning muscle from bone, throwing the orc onto its side to writhe in agony.
Normally Sunbright would have ripped out his opponent's throat, finishing it, but he
could hear the voices of Thornwing and Blindhawk, who'd schooled the children in
swordplay. "Don't focus on one enemy, but on all. Keep your vision wide, like the
reindeer and snow wolf. Track movement, not details."
Good advice, for the orc captain had taken the rightmost wing of the attack.
Counting on gaining the man's blind side, the creature came silently at a rush, club in
its left hand to be out of sight, aiming to hit the human behind the knee.
Sunbright saw all of this, in a half second, as a gray, threatening blur. He didn't
really understand the threat before he swung instinctively.
Slinging the long sword blade so fast and viciously it hissed in the thin mountain
air, Sunbright aimed for the orc's head below its helmet. Harvester's tip sounded a
splotch as it split the captain's face, then a clang as it struck and bounced off the red-
gray granite. A well-struck blow and a mistake, dulling a spot on his blade. How
would Blindhawk and Thornwing rate that?
Yet even the mistake he exploited. If the sword wanted to bounce off the cliff, so
be it. Throwing his shoulders behind the flying steel, he sheared into an orc's arm as
it swept for his head. The blow clipped off the wrist so club and hand flew in one
direction and the orc's scarlet blood in another.
But so fast, so clean was the blow, the orc failed to notice it had lost a hand. The
spurting hand chopped at the barbarian's head, spraying him with blood. Then the orc
stumbled—and crashed full into Sunbright.
This is bad, screamed his two phantom instructors.
Stinking like a flyblown goat, the orc sagged against Sunbright's chest, bowling
him back against the granite wall. Directly under the young man's nose was a dirty
neck speckled with coarse black hairs and flea bites on gray skin. And over that ugly
sight, a horde of orcs—How many? He hadn't counted his kills!—pressed him, howling in
triumph. The dying orc hung on Sunbright's right arm, dragging it down, entangling
Harvester's long blade. Before he could yank free or shove the orc off, a stone-studded club
whipped at his head. Ducking, he felt the greasy smoke-stained wood brush his topknot, heard
black obsidian teeth crunch on the cliff wall. Another orc punched at his face with a club, and
Sunbright almost snapped his neck whipping the other way.
Use what you have, urged his teachers. Use what the gods have given you,
Sunbright had told himself moments ago. But what was it?
"Ah!" he gasped aloud. Sensing more than seeing, he judged there was one orc
crowding his left, two still alive on his right.
With hysterical strength, Sunbright hoisted the dead orc before him, pitched it,
grunting, into the orc at his left. The orc's eyes flew wide as its dead comrade