"Sharon Green - Shadowborn - Captivity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Sharon)

my heart and a frantic desire to straighten up and run at full speed, knowing the guardsmen
must already have their bows in their hands. With the amount of distance between us they had
no hope of catching me on foot, but arrows fly faster than men or women run. If they had a
clear target they could get me in the leg, leaving me alive to be taken back to the city for
punishment. It would be far better for me to stay bent over and risk a shaft in the back, one
that would end my life before I could be returned to the city. A third escape attempt brought
slow death to a slave, and I had already tried twice before.
I wasn't far from the treeline when I heard a distant shout, low and garbled but clearly in a male
voice. I waited an instant and then scrabbled to my left, changing position without changing
direction. That shout had undoubtedly been one of the guardsmen, ordering the women in the
field down flat, which meant their arrows would soon be in the air. If they couldn't see me well
enough, if they only shot at where I'd been…
My half-prayer to the gods was answered in the same way it had been tendered: half way. I
heard nothing of the twang of bowstrings, but suddenly there was a swarm of angry insects in
the air to my right, tearing into the ground and trees in whistling fury. That would have been
fine, exactly what I wanted - except for the single shaft that flew too far to the left. It went by
me just as the others did, but as it passed it sliced open the back of my right shoulder, nearly
making me cry out with the pain. A moment later I was into the treeline, but I hadn't gained the
position without cost.
Once I was deep enough into the trees I could straighten up, but I couldn't slow down despite
the burning pain in my shoulder. And under no circumstance could I stop. I had already left a
smear or two of blood for the guardsmen to find, and even with the broadleaf I held to the
wound I would be leaving a trail they could follow if they really wanted to. I had to get as far
away as I could as quickly as I could, and count on the devastating heat to keep them from
following very far.
I changed general direction every fifty paces or so, but still kept heading deeper into the forest.
The air was a bit cooler there under the trees but gasping it in set my lungs aflame, the flood of
sweat drowning me adding to the fire rather than quenching it. What that salty moisture felt
like going into the wound is best left undescribed, but as I ran it certainly wasn't unfelt. The
leather brow band I wore kept some of the flood from my eyes, but the rest blurred my vision
and hung my hair in strings down my back.
After ages and eons of running, the time finally came when the god Ahainel took back the
breath and strength-of-limb he'd lent me. I would have had to stop even if the guardsmen had
been right behind me, but as far as I could tell they weren't. I wanted to lean on the tree I
stopped near, more than that I needed to lean on the tree, but I couldn't afford to leave any
more traces of blood than I already had. I shook my head to clear my vision as best I could,
then looked around while I gulped in air. A small thicket of leaves and branches began not far
ahead and to my right, so I forced myself into motion again.
After no more than three paces inside the thicket, I had to get down on hands and knees to go
any farther. That is, I had to get down on half-hand and knees. My left hand still had to hold
the broadleaf in place over the wound, and my right arm wasn't really up to supporting me while
I crawled. It took a lot of effort to keep going that way and my progress wasn't very rapid, but
eventually I reached a spot where I could simply lie down.
And maybe pass out for a short while. I opened my eyes to the feeling that time had gone by,
but it was still daylight and there were no sounds of pursuit. I lay face down in the grass of the
thicket, my left arm under my chest, my right arm at my side, my entire body aching so badly I
thought for a moment that I was coming around after a whipping. I knew what that felt like well
enough, but wasn't prepared to know it ever again.
Even if I had to die to make it so. As I lay unmoving in the grass I could hear the scream of a
furred hunter in the distance, a clear warning for all to keep away from the kill it had just made.