"Matthew Woodring Stover - Caine 01 - Heroes Die" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stover Matthew Woodring)

In the upper left corner of my vision, the red Exit Square blinks. I ignore it, even as it moves with
my eyes like an afterimage of the sun.

I'm only halfway across the room when the service door swings open. Jemson Thai, the master
steward, starts talking before he even clears the doorway. "Your pardon, Majesty," he begins in a hasty
breathless gabble, "but there is a rumor of an impostor among the serv..."

Jemson Thai takes in the headless corpse on the bed, he takes in me, and his gabble trails into
gasping. His eyes go round and the color drains from his face; his mouth works like he's strangling. close
the distance between us with a long, smoothcroise and kick him in the throat. It drops him like a bag of
rocks, and now he's strangling for real as he tries to breathe around the splinters of his larynx, clawing at
his throat and writhing on the service-passage floor.

I didn't even tip the tray.

One of the guards is, will be, easy. With a wordless exclamation he drops to one knee beside Thai
and tries stupidly to help him. What's he think he's gonna do, thump the poor bastard's back until he
coughs up his windpipe? The other isn't in sight; smarter than his partner, he's pressed against the wall of
the service passage, waiting for me.

Both of these guards wear long sturdy hauberks under their mantles of maroon and gold, with
padded chainmail coifs reinforced by studded steel skullcaps. Toa-Phelathon spared no expense in
outfitting his Household Knights; my knives are useless against them, but hey, that's all right—I'm deep in
it, now.

The waiting is over. I'm happy again.

The smarter guard has a brainstorm and begins to shout for help.

I uncover the tray and gravely regard Toa-Phelathon. The lower third of his flowing hair is soaked
in blood, but his face isn't too contorted; even with the ruin of his eye he's still clearly recognizable. I
thrust the tray through the doorway about chest high; the sight of its cargo cuts off the shouted alarm as
efficiently as an arrow down the throat.

While the portion of the guard's brain that handles signal processing still struggles to assimilate the
concept of the disembodied head of his king, I skip out into the service passage; I have two seconds,
maybe more, before Smartguard there can use his mind for anything beyond saying, "Huh?"

The guard on one knee claws at his sword as he surges to his feet. I drop the tray with a clang,
and the head bounces away as I get a hand on the dumb guard's wrist and keep that blade where it
belongs. I follow with a sharp headbutt that rings in my ears with a slapstickbonk; Dumbguard's nose
spreads like deviled ham, and his eyes drift together. I wrap both forearms around his coif and pivot
away from him, twisting him sideways into a hangman's throw that sends him tumbling forward to crash
into Smartguard. The padding behind his chainmail coif didn't give his neck enough support to save him:
his neck bones parted with a sharp pop as I levered him over my back. He twitches out the last of his life
as I leap lightly across Jemson Thai's convulsing body to go over and kill Smartguard.

That's when Toa-Phelathon gets his piece of me, a bit of petty revenge that must have him
snickering in the afterlife.