"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 18 - Warlords of Gaikon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

sound on the gravel.
In the rear of the temple, out of sight of the hut, Blade stopped and looked again. A small, polished
door with a gilded, many-rayed bronze sun on it let him into the temple itself. Inside was darkness that
smelled of varnish, old wood, dust, and incense. A narrow flight of stairs rose upward and vanished.
The second floor was a single, large, bare chamber, its walls and floor both whitewashed. In one
corner was a pile of what seemed to be temple gear—brass and porcelain urns, censers on gilded chains,
screens, mats, small lacquered boxes, and assorted bamboo-like poles of various lengths. Blade picked
up an eight-foot pole and tested it for balance and ease of handling. It wasn't much of a weapon, even for
a quarterstaff expert like Blade. But it was a damned sight better than bare hands!
Blade was turning toward the stairs to the third floor when he heard the gong sounding again from
below. It sounded eight times, in two groups of four beats. As the echoes of the last beat faded away into
the forest, Blade heard quick, light footsteps descending the stairs from above. He froze, realized there
was no place to hide in the room, and dashed for the stairs leading down.
Before he could get out of sight, a woman appeared at the foot of the stairs from the third floor and
froze to stare in amazement at Blade. She wore a blue and white patterned kimono-like robe with a
golden sash and a large, gold-lacquered mask shoved up onto the top of her head. In one hand she
carried a blue porcelain urn and in the other a small, gilded bronze censer on a chain.
Before Blade could move or speak, the woman leaped violently to one side. The leap carried her
halfway to the pile of temple gear. As she landed she let out a raw, wordless screech that sounded more
like a wildcat than anything human. Then she ran to the open window on the side of the building toward
the hut and screamed:
"Blasphemy! Blasphemy! A madman in theTempleofKunkoi ! A naked madman! Avenge the honor
of the goddess!"
Blade raised the bamboo pole. The woman spun around and hurled the urn straight at Blade's head.
He ducked, just in time for the urn to sail past his ear and smash into the wall behind him. From the crash
it made, he knew that it would have smashed his skull if it had connected. Then the priestess was
advancing on him, swinging the censer around and around her head on its chain. Not wildly, like a
panic-stricken woman, but like someone who knew very well what she was doing and had trained for
years with the weapon she was using.
Blade held his ground. If he could disarm the woman without hurting her, perhaps he could— The
woman suddenly let out another foot of chain, and the censer whirled close enough to Blade to make him
jump back.
 He raised his pole, ready to thrust it into the circle and entangle the whirling chain. But as fast as
Blade moved, the woman moved just as fast. She swung the censer low, snagging the lower end of
Blade's pole. Then she threw herself backward in a complete somersault, putting all of her weight and all
her strength behind the pull on the chain. The pole leaped out of Blade's hands, smashing him across the
left cheek as it did so and flew like a spear across the room. Before he could recover, the woman was
back on her feet. She snatched up another pole from the pile with one hand and drew a short, curved
dagger from her sash with the other.
Then from outside came the booming of the gong. It was sounding in a rapid beat. Along with the
gong came the rattle of doors and weapons, the scrape of running feet on gravel, and shouted orders.
The temple's guards were turning out in answer to the priestess' call. It went against Blade's instincts to
run like a rabbit, but he didn't see what else to do. He couldn't face the guards barehanded until he got
some maneuvering room. That meant getting out of the temple, for a starter.
Blade plunged down the stairs three at a time. The priestess followed close on his heels, waving her
dagger and shouting at the top of her lungs, "Blasphemer! Slay, slay, slay for the honor of Kunkoi!"
As Blade reached the foot of the stairs the temple door flew open and a spear whistled past his nose
and chunked into the wall behind him. By pure reflex he whirled, jerked the spear loose, and jabbed it
butt-first at the priestess as she came within range. She jumped aside, Blade whirled the spear over and
around, then slammed the shaft across the back of her knees. She went down the last four steps with a