"Michael Swanwick - Cold Iron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

like Fata Elspeth and Fata Morgaine, and spoke in mellifluous polysyllables. Their laughter was like little
bells and they called her Fata Jayne. An elven prince urged a bowl of sorbet dainties on her. There was
romance in his eyes. Dwarven slaves heaped the floor with cut flowers in place of rushes.

She took a bite of sandwich, and chewed it slowly to make it last. Crouched in the arch of the window
was her very own aquilohippus, jeweled saddle on its back, and anxious to fly. Its glance was fierce and
its beak as sharp as razors. Nobody but she dared ride it, but to her it was very gentle and sweet. Its
name was

Somebody stomped on her foot.

"Oh!" Jane scrambled to her feet, knocking over her juice, and saw that Rooster had just passed her, a
bag of scrap slung over his shoulder—he was on the second lunch shift, and still working. "Heads up,
dipshit! It's almost time!" he growled from the corner of his mouth. Then, to take the sting off his words,
he smiled and winked. But it was a wan and unconvincing smile. If she hadn't known better, she'd've
thought him afraid.

Then he was gone.

Her peaceful mood was shattered. Briefly, she had forgotten Rooster's wild plan. Now it came back to
her, and with it the certainty that it would never work. She would be caught and punished, and there was
nothing she could do about it. She had given her word.

The wall of the foundry furthest from the cupolas held a run of narrow offices for shop-level supervisors.
Jane shoved her sandwich into the pocket of her work apron, and peered around the edge of the bin.
She could see Blugg's office and within it Blugg seated at his desk, cigar in mouth, slowly leafing through
a glossy magazine.

Blugg was fat and burly, with heavy jowls and a low brow. He had wispy flyaway hair, which was
thinning and which he never tended, and a curling pair of ram's horns of which he was inordinately vain.
For special occasions he had them lacquered and varnished, and once a year on Samhain, he would gild
the tips. Traces of gold remained in the whorls and ridges for weeks after.

"Hsst!"

Jane turned. The shadow-boy was standing in the niche she had just vacated, a ragged figure dim and
difficult to see even at high noon. "Rooster sent me," he said. "I'm supposed to keep lookout for you."
She could not make out the expression on his face, but his voice trembled.

She felt awful now, and afraid. "I can't," she said. She didn't have the nerve to go ahead with it. "I just—"

A roar shattered the midday calm. Suddenly everyone was running, throwing down tools, scuttling out
onto the workfloor and climbing up on the molds to see what was going on. They were all rushing toward
the cupolas. Something was happening there. Jane stared into the swirl of figures, unable to make sense
of all the noise and motion. Then suddenly everything snapped into place.

Rooster, laughing insanely, was pissing on a hammer giant's foot. The hammer giant screamed in fury. It
was the Sand Slinger himself, the biggest creature in all the plant, that Rooster had decided to pick on.
This was typical Rooster shrewdness, since the Sand Slinger was not only the largest but had the slowest
reaction time of all the giants. But it was still a madly dangerous thing to do.