"Mithgar - Hel's Crucible - 01 - Into The Forge" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKiernan Dennis L)

—His heart leaping in alarm, Tipperton yanked his bow to the full and—

Wait! It's a man, a Human. Oh, Adon, look at the blood flowing.

Tipperton set his bow aside and, straining, dragged the dead Hlok from atop the Human.

Jostled, the man opened his eyes, then closed them again.

Got to get him inside. Tipperton lifted the door latch and pushed. It did not yield. Nitwit! It's barred!. . . Wait, the window! Swiftly, Tipperton stepped across the man and to the shattered jamb and broke out the remaining shards yet clinging to the frame. Then he clambered through, cutting a foot as he stepped on the glass fragments lying on the inside. Twice a nitwit!

Hobbling, he moved to the door and slid back the bar and raised the latch, the door swinging back as the weight of the man pushed it open and he slumped inward and lay half in, half out of the chamber. Struggling, Tipperton managed to drag the man the rest of the way inside. His heart yet racing, the buccan stepped back out and retrieved his bow and arrows, then scanned the landscape 'round— Nothing. He stepped back inside, closing the door after.

By the light of the lantern yet sitting on the hearth, Tipperton removed the man's helmet, revealing short-cropped dark hair, and he placed a pillow under the man's head. The man was slender but well built, and appeared to be in his mid-twenties—Though with a Human, I can never tell. Tipperton then ripped cloth to make bandages to bind the man's wounds, and he said aloud, "Look, my friend, I'd get you out of those leathers to fix you up, but I'm afraid that more jostling will only make the bleeding worse, so in places I'll just slit them apart where they're already rent." The man neither opened his eyes nor replied, and Tipperton thought him unconscious. The buccan then began swathing the man's cuts as well as he could—slicing open sleeves and pant legs, and unlacing the front of the leather vest and the jerkin beneath, all to get at the wounds to bind them—though crimson seeped through the wrappings even as he moved from one bleeding gash to the next.

Now the man opened his eyes, eyes such a pale blue as to seem nearly white. He looked at Tipperton and then whispered, "Runner."

"Wh-what?"

"Horse."

"Oh." Tipperton shifted to the next wound, then said, "I'm sorry, but the horse is dead."

The man sighed and closed his ghostly eyes.

Quickly, Tipperton bandaged the last of the man's cuts and covered him with blankets. Then he threw off his nightshirt, now soaked with blood, and began flinging on clothes. "I've got to get you some help. A healer. There's one nearby."

As the buccan stomped his cut foot into the other boot and then stood and drew on his cloak, the man opened his eyes once more and raised a hand and beckoned.

Tipperton crossed over and knelt down beside him.

Staring deep into Tipperton's jewellike sapphirine eyes, the man seemed to come to some conclusion, and he struggled to unbuckle his leather gorget. With Tipperton's help, he at last got the neck guard free, and from 'round his throat and over his head he lifted a token on a leather thong. "East," he whispered as he pressed the token—plain and dull grey, a coin with a hole in it—into the buccan's hand. "Go east. . . warn all... take this to Agron."

Tipperton frowned in confusion. "Agron? Who—? No, wait. You can explain later." He slipped the thong over his own head and tucked the coin down his shirt. "Right now I'm going after a healer."

" 'Ware, Waldan," whispered the man, his pale eyes now closed. "There's more . . . out there."

Tipperton drew in a deep breath, then said, "I'll take my bow."

The man did not reply.

Tipperton stood up to his full three foot four inch height and momentarily looked down at the man. Then he snatched up his bow and quiver and blew out the lantern light—Don't want a beacon calling to Rucks—and slipped out the door, closing it behind. He slid to the right and paused in the shadows, his gaze searching for foe. Finding none, he glided upslope across the clearing and in among the trees, the buccan shunning the two-track wagon lane, seeking instead the shelter of the forest alongside. Then he began running, his black hair streaming out behind, his feet flying over the snow, Tipperton Thistledown racing in virtual silence, as only a Warrow can run.





Chapter 2