"Stephen Lawhead - Celtic Crusades 01 - The Iron Lance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lawhead Stephen)

Great God, I am lost!
The cry is scarcely uttered when the answer is revealed. There is a thread ...
a thread. Seize it, hold it, follow it, and it will lead through the twisted
labyrinth of madness to sweet reason.
Carefully, carefully, I take up the thread.

ONE
Murdo raced down the long slope, his bare feet striking the soft turf so that
the only sound to be heard was the hiss and swash of his legs through the
coarse green bracken. Far behind him, a rider appeared on the crest of the
hill and was quickly joined by two more. Murdo knew they were there; he had
anticipated this moment of discovery, and the instant the hunters appeared he
dived headlong to the ground to vanish among the quivering fronds where he
continued his flight, scrambling forward on knees and elbows, first one way
and then another.
The riders spurred their mounts and flew down the hillside, the blades of
their spears gleaming in the early light. All three shouted as they came,
voicing the ancient battlecry of the clan: 'Dubh a dearg!'
Murdo heard the shouts _ and froze fast, pressing himself to the damp earth.
He felt the dew seeping through his siarc and breecs, and smelled the sharp
tang of the bracken. The sky showed bright blue through leafy gaps above him
and, heart pounding, he watched the empty air for the first glimpse of
discovery.
The horses raced swiftly nearer, their hooves drumming fast and loud, and
flinging the soft turf high over their broad backs. Murdo, flat beneath the
bracken, every sense alert and twitching, listened to the swift-running horses
and judged their distance. He also heard the liquid gurgle of a hidden burn a
short distance ahead, lower down the slope.
Upon reaching the place where the youth had disappeared, the riders halted and
began hacking into the dense brake with the butts of their spears. 'Out! Out!'
they shouted. 'We have you! Declare and surrender!'
Murdo, ignoring the calls, lay still as death and tried to calm the rapid
beating of his heart so the hunters would not hear him. They were very near.
He held his breath and watched the patch of sky for sight or shadow of his
pursuers.
The riders wheeled their mounts this way and that, spear shafts slashing at
the fronds, their cries growing more irritated with each futile pass. 'Come
out!' shouted the largest of the riders, a raw-boned, fair-haired young man
named Torf. 'You cannot escape! Come out, damn you!'
'Give up!' shouted one of the others. Murdo recognized the voice; it belonged
to a thick-shouldered bull of a youth named Skuli. 'Give up and face your
punishment!'
'Surrender, you sneaking little weasel,' cried the last of the three. It was
the dark-haired one called Paul. 'Surrender now and save yourself a hiding!'
Murdo knew his pursuers and knew them well. Two of them were his brothers, and
the third was a cousin he had met for the first time only ten days ago. Even
so, he had no intention of giving up; he knew, despite Paul's vague assurance,
they would beat him anyway.
Instead, amidst the shouts and the brushy whack of the spears, Murdo calmly
put two fingers beneath his belt and withdrew a tightly-wound skein of wool