"John Moore - Heroics for Beginners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore John)

Dark gray clouds scudded against the moon. It was totally overcast when Thunk started out, but the sky
partially cleared, and when the bright moon came out, it illuminated the Fortress of Doom and striped it
with black-and-gray shadows. Thunk stayed motionless in one such shadow, thrown by a chimney, with
his feet braced against the steep slope of the slate roof. Voices wafted from below, from the heavily
guarded doorways. More guards, armed and armored, could be seen pacing across the gates, leaning
out the windows, or standing at the parapets. Thunk the Barbarian waited. To pass the time he pulled an
india rubber ball from his pouch and practiced grip-strengthening exercises. He flexed the muscles in his
forearms and wondered if it was time for a new tattoo.

When the moon darkened once again he allowed himself a derisive smile. For a man of his skill and
experience, the seemingly impregnable fortress had posed little challenge. Soldiers walked the streets of
the nearby village, but they had taken little notice of him. He did not find anything odd in this, despite the
fact that a tall man with massive shoulders, dressed in barbarian leather and furs, and carrying a huge
sword engraved with cryptic runes, usually attracts at least a second glance. The trail up to the Fortress
was also guarded of course; but he had bypassed that, using his expert climbing ability to go directly up
the cliff. He wasn't surprised that the cliff edge was unguarded. No doubt they considered the sheer face
unscalable. There remained the smooth stone walls of the Fortress itself, and a skillfully thrown rope had
solved that problem. Then from atop the wall, a convenient cast-iron drainpipe provided access to the
roof.An easy job. Not much of a challenge to a man like Thunk.

Now he removed an iron grating that provided access to a ventilation shaft. The grate wasn't even bolted
down but just slid into a groove in the shaft housing. It was amazing how often the fools who built these
castles forgot to secure the ventilation shafts. Anyone would think they'd know better by now.

Once inside he replaced the grating and sat back, listening. All was silent on the roof. Reassured, he slid
back the cover of his dark lantern. The shaft, wide enough for even the broad-shouldered barbarian,
dropped away into darkness.

Something, however, obstructed his view. He lowered the lantern into the hole. A faint thin odor of
burning lamp oil filled the shaft. Four broad steel bars stretched across the opening. But not all the way
across, and at one end they were set into a rotating cylinder. It looked forall the world like a turnstile.

Thunk leaned forward for a closer look. Itwas a turnstile. Neat letters had been painted above a narrow
slot. "Ventilation Shaft Entrance: 2p." Puzzled, Thunk reached into his pouch and extracted a tuppence.
He dropped the coin into the slot,then drew his sword. Carefully, he touched the blade to the bars. The
cylinder rotated. The bars swung down against the wall of the shaft. He shrugged, replaced his sword in
its scabbard, and slipped through the open gate.

He left the lantern at the turnstile, braced his feet against one side of the shaft and his back against the
other, and carefully and quietly worked his way down. His sword dangled from his belt, the point
swinging gently. It was an easy descent, for he'd had plenty of practice at this sort of thing. Thunk had
lost count of the number of impregnable fortresses he had penetrated by climbing through a ventilation
shaft. True, Thunk would also be the first to admit that counting was not one of his strong points, but it
was still a lot of shafts.

The opening above him grew smaller, the light from the lantern grew fainter, but presently Thunk could
make out a dim glow beneath him. He had dropped nearly sixty feet and was well into the interior of the
castle. A few feet later he reached the bottom of the shaft, which ran horizontally in four directions. The