"Michael Scott Rohan - Chase the Morning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rohan Michael Scott)

in my head. A leering, slobbbering face, greyish and sickly in the dim light,
shone out suddenly in front of me, capped by a cockatoo crest of green, a mass
of gold ear-rings jangling. I smashed at it with my good arm, felt the blow
connect and exulted -till the rocket burst, or so it felt, and my teeth
slammed together with the force of the impact. I doubled over, clutching my
head, unable to see or even think straight, my mind crazed across like a
mirror by the blow. I heard a yell beside me, a burst of noise and expected
the worst, the sharp agony of the knife or the blunt bite of boots. But my
back bumped against a wall and I straightened up, grateful for its support,
and forced my eyes open in time to see the three shadows go clattering away
for their lives down the street towards the sea, one limping badly, another
clutching his chest; the third they were dragging between them, his feet
scrabbling helplessly at the rounded stones. A black trail like a snail's
glistened where he had passed.
The man they'd been after was crouched down against the wall to my right,
by the doorpost, clutching his ribs and breathing heavily. I thought at first
he was injured, but he looked up and grinned. An ordinary enough grin, on a
lean, mobile face. 'Now that's what I call timing!' he said, and chuckled.
'Who were they?' I managed to croak out.
'Them? Just Wolves, as usual. Out for anything that's not nailed down,
and a good few things that are - you know!' He looked up suddenly. 'Hey - you
don't know, do you? You're not from this side of town, are you?'
I shook my head, forgetting, and dissolved the world into needles of
blinding pain. I swayed, stunned and sick, and he sprang up and caught me.
'What's the matter? Didn't stop one, did you? Ach ... not from this side.' The
questioning in his voice had turned to certainty without any answer from me.
'Not a local. Might've known, the way you came barreling in like that.' He
propped me against the doorpost and searched my scalp with blunt fingers,
causing me more bouts of agony. 'Well, that's nothing!' he concluded, with
infuriating briskness.
'You try it awhile and say that!' 1 croaked at him, and he grinned
again.
'No offense, friend. Just relieved your dome's not cracked, that's all.
A bump and a little blood, no sweat. But that arm of yours, that's different.'
'Doesn't hurt as much -'
'Aye, maybe; but it's a blade in the muscle. Could be dirty, if no worse. Hold
on a moment ...' The blade he himself had used to such effect flashed in his
hand, and I was astonished to see it was no knife, but a fully-fledged sword,
a sabre of some kind; he twitched it adroitly into a scabbard on his belt,
unhooked from beside it a ring of huge old-fashioned keys and locked the
warehouse door behind him with one of them, muttering to himself the while.
'C'mon now, nothing to worry about; I'll see you right. Just lean on your old
mate Jyp - that's it! Just round the corner a few steps - lean on me if you
like!'
That seemed a daft idea - he was such a short man. But as he bore me up
by my good arm I was astonished to realize he was hardly any shorter than me,
and I am over six feet. It was next to the others he'd looked unusually small;
so how tall were they?
This close, too, he didn't look so ordinary. His face was bony,
hard-jawed, but his features were open and regular; a bit Scandinavian, maybe,