"Karl Edward Wagner - Kane 05 - Night Winds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

With a snarl of inexpressible fury, the stranger turned on him. The sudden
movement flung back his hood.
The caretaker for the first time saw his visitor's eyes. He had breath for a
short bleat of terror, before the dirk he did not see smashed through his
heart.


Workers the next day, puzzling over the custodian's disappearance, were
shocked to discover, on examining the night's new tenants for the necrotorium,
that he had not disappeared after all.




I
Seekers in the Night

There--he heard the sound again.
Mavrsal left off his disgruntled contemplation of the near-empty wine bottle
and stealthily came to his feet. The captain of the Tuab was alone in his
cabin, and the hour was late. For hours the only sounds close at hand had been
the slap of waves on the barnacled bull, the creak of cordage, and the dull
thud of the caravel's aged timbers against the quay. Then had come a soft
footfall, a muffled fumbling among the deck gear outside his half-open door.
Too loud for rats--a thief, then?
Grimly Mavrsal unsheathed his heavy cutlass and caught up a lantern. He
catfooted onto the deck, reflecting bitterly over his worthless crew. From
cook to first mate, they had deserted his ship a few days before, angered over
wages months unpaid. An unseasonable squall had forced them to jettison most
of their cargo of copper ingots, and the Tuab had limped into the harbor of
Carsultyal with shredded sails, a cracked mainmast, a dozen new leaks from
wrenched timbers, and the rest of her worn fittings in no better shape.
Instead of the expected wealth, the decimated cargo had brought in barely
enough capital to cover the expense of refitting. Mavrsal argued that until
refitted, the Tuab was unseaworthy, and that once repairs were complete,
another cargo could be found (somehow), and then wages long in arrears could
be paid--with a bonus for patient loyalty. The crew cared neither for his
logic nor his promises and defected amidst stormy threats.
Had one of them returned to carry out...? Mavrsal hunched his thick shoulders
truculently and hefted the cutlass. The master of the Tuab had never run from
a brawl, much less a sneak thief or slinking assassin.
Night skies of autumn were bright over Carsultyal, making the lantern almost
unneeded. Mavrsal surveyed the soft shadows of the caravel's deck, his brown
eyes narrowed and alert beneath shaggy brows. But he heard the low sobbing
almost at once, so there was no need to prowl about the deck.
He strode quickly to the mound of torn sail and rigging at the far rail. "All
right, come out of that!" he rumbled, beckoning with the tip of his blade to
the half-seen figure crouched against the rail. The sobbing choked into
silence. Mavrsal prodded the canvas with an impatient boot. "Out of there,
damn it!" he repeated.