"Karl Edward Wagner - Cold Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

and slid drunkenly down the entire flight, rolling to a painful stop
at the bottom. Setting his teeth in a death head grin, Kane
crawled to the rear door. Already he could hear the hoofbeats of
his enemies closing in for the kill. Somehow he pushed through
the doorway and kicked it closed behind him. The lake offered an
avenue of escape—or a death trap if he could not swim. Still it
was his only chance.
Staggering, lurching, crawling, writhing on his
belly—frantically Kane forced his body to cross the twilit garden.
The sound of riders was closer now, and Kane had no way of
knowing whether they had spotted him in the semidarkness.
Hunching forward, he gained the bank of the lake at last. Now he
could hear them pounding against the front gate. A final few
yards remained. Kane rolled weakly down the slope of the bank
and slid off into the lake.
He floundered for a moment, trying to reach deeper water. The
cool water closed over his body, and the weight of the sword on
his back drew him down. Grimly holding his breath, Kane kicked
against the bottom in an effort to get farther from shore. If the
water were deep enough, he hoped to be able to float. But
although Kane was a strong swimmer, he knew his massive bulk
permitted him to float with difficulty in the best of
circumstances.
His breath was growing short. With a major effort he wrenched
his head above the surface to draw a gasping breath. He had
progressed a good many yards from shore, he saw with relief, and
as yet his attackers were too busy breaking into the villa to search
for him in the lake.
The spell seemed to be lifting! Each movement seemed easier
now; no longer did blackness seek so ineluctably to overwhelm
his consciousness. The water, the distance he had moved from its
focus had stolen power from the spell. The wizard must have
ceased to send it against the villa now that his fellows were
within. Whatever the reasons, Kane felt his strength begin to
return to him.
With silent, powerful strokes Kane swam away underwater
across the darkened lake. Behind him his baffled enemies were
angrily searching through the silent villa and its gardens for their
prey. But it would be too late to act by the time they realized how
their quarry had escaped.




VI. Sword of Cold Light
Gaethaa had been furious once it was obvious that Kane had
somehow escaped him. A careful search of the villa had turned
up no one other than Rehhaile, still unconscious from the wizard's
spell. A search of the gardens had disclosed a trail such as a
crawling man might make that led into the lake. Reconstructing