"Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 01 - Wizard in Absentia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

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By the time the sun had risen, lan had made perhaps
three miles. Then, as the first rays touched him, he
looked about for a hiding place. A thicket of young fir
trees caught his eye, their branches sweeping down
to the ground. He went to them and thrust his way
between the branches into the brown circle about
the trunk.

A man dressed in a green tunic and brown leggings
leaned upon his spear, scowling thoughtfully.

lan froze and caught his breath. A gamekeeper, and
one who had no doubt been told to look for a run-
away boy!

The keeper sighed, looked up—and saw lan.

For a moment, they both stood stock-still, staring
at one another. Then the keeper's face hardened and
he came toward lan, his hand outstretched.
, lan turned and bolted.

Christopher Stasheff

Behind him, he heard the keeper shout, heard his
heavy feet pounding, and ran for his life.

A thicket loomed up before him. Without slacken-
ing his stride, he set the heel of his staff against the
ground in front of the bushes and leaped. He swung
up on the staff and over, like a clock's pendulum in-
verted. He shoved hard, and landed on the far side of
the bushes. He stumbled and ran on, as fast as he
could. Behind him, he heard the keeper cursing as he
floundered through the bushes. He had bought a lit-
tle time. lan ran, zigzagging between the trees,
around trunks. Taking a lesson from the dwarves, he
chose trees with low branches that he could duck
under, too low for the keeper to follow. Then two
trunks appeared, so closely together that there was
scarcely room for him to pass. He scrambled be-
tween them, but the keeper could not; that would
slow him a little, too. His heart began to hammer; he
could not seem to get enough breath. Gasping, he
forced himself to run on, until suddenly the forest
fell away and he was in a meadow, a clearing in the
forest, with no place to hide. But a great round rock
with a glint of metal to it stood up in the center of