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

screech and a clatter of wooden clogs, sprawling face-down on the floor. Her dagger flew out of her
hand and went spinning away.
Blade bent to pick it up. As he did so, the first guard came charging through the open door. In the
close quarters and the dim light the man looked at least seven feet tall and six feet wide; he must have
been a good deal bigger than Blade. He gave a yell of fury as he saw the priestess sprawled on the floor
and charged straight at Blade. As he came he snatched a six-foot curved sword from a scabbard across
his back and sent it whistling down toward Blade.
Blade swung his spear around in front of him and held it out to block the stroke. If the guard had
been able to let loose a full swing, the sword would have split Blade down the middle as neatly as a
barbecued chicken. But the low ceiling saved him. The sword whistled down in front of him, effortlessly
chopping his spear in two.
Now Blade had the advantage for a moment, the advantage any good fighting man has at close
quarters against an opponent with a two-handed weapon. He used that advantage, feinting at the guard's
groin with the severed point of his spear. The guard took his eyes off Blade's other hand for a second,
long enough for Blade to ram the butt of the spear straight up under his chin. The guard reeled and
toppled with a crash that seemed to shake the whole temple.
Behind him Blade heard the priestess getting to her feet still screeching, "Slay the blasphemer!
Avenge the honor of the Sun Goddess!" Having no desire to be slain to avenge the honor of the Sun
Goddess, or for any other reason, Blade dashed out of the temple like a sprinter trying to set a world's
record.
He was rounding the corner of the temple on the side where the scaffolding stood when he met six
guards coming the other way. They all carried spears and the long curved swords, and wore cotton coats
and kilts sewn with small iron discs and lacquered-metal hats and greaves. None of them was much
smaller than the one Blade had disabled inside the temple, and all of them looked just as unfriendly.
Blade had a brief feeling that this was the end of the road for him. But it wasn't in him to die tamely.
He grabbed at one of the poles in the scaffolding, jerking it loose and raising it high. If he could keep the
guards at bay long enough to explain himself—
Before he could complete the thought, a sharp crack sounded from high overhead. One of the guards
jerked his head upward, then gave a yell of fear and turned to run. The other guards froze in their tracks.
Blade risked a quick look of his own—just as the whole scaffolding shivered, shook, and then began to
collapse.
Poles and cross-braces snapped and cracked, tiles, planks, pots of paint, and varnish showered
down like hailstones, and the guards scattered in all directions. Blade jumped back too, but not quite fast
enough. A pot of paint came plummeting down and scored a direct hit on his left shoulder. It
disintegrated as it struck, barely bruising the skin but drenching Blade's chest and left arm with oily brown
paint.
As the wreckage settled Blade looked toward the entrance. The guards were forming a line across it,
so there would be no getting out that way. It would have to be over the walls and then outrun the guards.
The second part wouldn't be hard—they didn't look built for speed. But the first part—well, there was
the pole in his hands. Blade hefted it and flexed it. It would have to do.
He moved back as far as possible to give himself a longer run. He could only hope that the guards
wouldn't realize what he was doing until it was too late. He threw a quick look back over his shoulder.
Good. They apparently thought they had him trapped.
Now—raise the pole, take a deep breath—several deep breaths—and RUN!
Blade charged toward the wall even faster than he had gone out of the temple. His long legs ate up
the ground. As he judged the right second, the pole swung down in a long arc, driving down into the
ground as Blade drove upward with all the strength in his body. Blade felt himself soaring upward, rising
up to the level of the spikes on top of the wall, rising over them—
Crack! The pole slammed into the wall and snapped like a twig, twisting Blade in midair. He flung
himself over into a complete somersault, desperately trying to avoid landing headfirst. By a minor miracle