"Gardner F. Fox - Kothar 01 - Kothar Barbarian Swordsman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fox Gardner F)

Above his yellow poll the trees made a green canopy that hid everything
from his eyes but a patch of white cloud and a bit of blue sky. Would that
the leaves might also hide his tracks! He blundered on, head down and
gasping, blind to everything but the pain and the voices growing louder
and more confident behind him.

He ran for a long time; there was still strength left in his big, muscular
body with the broken sword gripped in his fingers. He would sell his life as
dearly as possible; these men of the southlands would never forget his
dying battle. Aie! He would make the name of Kothar long remembered in
this kingdom of Commoral.

Finally he slid to a halt and leaned a bloody hand against a tree bole. He
shook his head like an animal brought to bay. His glaring eyes peered
around him in the dense forest at a spray of red and white flowers hanging
from a gigantic rock like a colored waterfall.

Kothar blinked in disbelief.

Was he delirious with loss of blood and the pain of his wounds—or was
that an iron door behind those vine-flowers? He licked his lips with a
swollen tongue, aware that hope was surging up into his huge chest. An
iron door in solid rock? It could not be. It was a mere trick of his failing
senses, of his blurring eyes with the blood dripping into them from a scalp
wound.

And yet—

Kothar straightened his body slowly, daring to hope. There was a door
there, rusted and disused for centuries, perhaps—but still a door. The
youthful giant pushed away from the tree. Yes, the fading sunlight made it
dimly visible; it was almost unseeable behind its vine and flower curtain,
but it was there.

"Thanks to Dwallka," he gasped, and ran.

His arm in its leather hacqueton and mailed sleeve brushed the flower
vines away. He could see the ancient metal door more clearly now and
could read the forgotten sigils on its rusted surface. He could not
understand them; they were written in a language dead for more than a
hundred centuries, but his barbarian senses were aware of awesome
magic in their twistings.

Kothar shook his wide shoulders. He did not care for magic, but he
cared even less for the baying hounds and the huntsmen loping along his
bloody backtrail. He lurched forward, a quivering hand stretched out to
touch the rusted metal and seek across it for a ring or handle to open that
ancient adit. The vines and flowers closed in behind him, leaving him in a
cool, faintly hushed sanctuary.