"Eric Van Lustbader - Sunset Warrior 2 - Shallows of Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lustbader Eric van)

against the whipping winds which, forever swirling, gather layers of fine powdery
snow from the mountains' slopes, turning them into rising sheets, hurling them
forward, like giants striding across the barren land.
He floats over sheer gorges, frosted thickly in gleaming sheets of periwinkle ice,
plumes of loose snow drifting along their flanks like smoke from a funeral pyre. His
keen eyes trace the vertiginous descent from dancing ice crystaled
green-turquoise-magenta in the dying light to the violent violet of their yawning and
uneasy depths: precipitous chasms sliced out of the land as cleanly as if by a cruel
blade of immense size. Powerful wings flutter as out of these depths now is heard
the agonized groaning of shifting rock. Ozone and sulphur fill the air as the earth
shudders and trembles. Shards of ice shear off in dense clusters with infinite
slowness, hanging impossibly in mid-air, crumbling in layers until, with an abrupt and
complete swiftness, they explode silently into vast spurts of hyalescent spray high in
the sky that turn to rainbow arcs as they catch the last oblique rays of watery light.
He wheels in the colored, suddenly solid air, unperturbed.
Everywhere is ice and draperies of snow with only the occasional tired fist of
granite or twisted schist rising like ancient tombstones in an alien desert, useless
punctuation on a blank and crumbling page.
Against this inimical icescape nothing moves.
 The bird banks and glides in the sky, his black-irised eyes scanning the dreadful
sameness of the land. Into the setting sun he flies, his majestic plumage stained a
dilute scarlet and, glancing once more earthward, he sees a dark and tiny shadow
limned before the glare of the ice. Muscles respond to the brain's command and the
wings dip, their silver plumage losing for a moment the scarlet wash, turning a rich
lustrous gray, as he heads southward for a closer look.
Resolution of image comes far too swiftly, for the shadow is huge. Abruptly it
moves and, startled, the bird wheels away from the edge of the steep precipice along
which he has been flying and, flapping his wings in alarm, speeds westward, rising,
gaining the high currents, diminishing into the light of the lowering sun.
Transfixed, Ronin stands at the verge of the high ice ledge staring southward,
oblivious to the receding speck in the sky.
Motionless, his body tall and muscular, he appears more a statue erected to the
countless legions who, throughout the myriad ages, have fought across the changing
faces of this land. For here once grew lush verdant forests of giant fern and slender
willow spreading their fans of feathered leaves, building dense jungles of crowding
greenery and thick tangles of vines through which cocoa warriors crept and
crouched, sweating, listening methodically to the shrill cries of startlingly colored
birds, readying the leap, an uncoiling blur, tan and brown shadow, flickering in the
filtering light, the quick silent slash, the gout of bright blood beading the foliage, the
dying body of the enemy. And in another age—earlier or later, one cannot be
sure—here swelled and sucked fifteen fathoms of green water alive with the riotous
growth of the sea. High-booted feet tramped the stained tarred decks of
wide-beamed wooden ships, long oars extending from their high curving sides,
beating through air and water in hypnotic rhythm. Hoarse shouts filled the sky heavy
with brine and heat as helmed and bearded warriors prepared themselves for battle.
Layers of hard snow encrust the slippery ice of the precipice upon which he
stands, feet apart and planted firmly in the frost. Unconsciously he clenches his left
hand, which is covered by a strange scaled gauntlet, dull and unreflective. The wind
gusts, screaming in his ears, and rushes by him, unheeded, sucked in by the crevices
and piled hillocks of the plateau tumbling at his back. The air is dry and chill. The