"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 1 - Lure Of The Basilisk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

account for the warbeast's actions. Thoroughly unsettled, he sat unmoving upon
his unmoving mount for perhaps a minute. When no threat manifested itself, he
cautiously urged the animal forward, his sword still in his hand.
The beast took a single step, then froze again. Garth did not need to
wonder why. He himself sat utterly motionless for a few brief seconds that
seemed like long, slow minutes as he struggled to accept the evidence of his
senses.
He was staring into the face of a fur-clad human, not fifteen feet away.
The face had not approached, not slid in from the side, not swooped down
from above, not risen out of the ground; it had simply appeared!
Attached to the face was a lean body wrapped in gray furs and seated
upon a beast thoroughly unlike Garth's own, a brown beast with a long, narrow
muzzle, great round eyes on either side of its head of a brown a shade darker
than its hide, a shock of long black hair starting between its ears and
running down the back of its neck.
Garth took this in instantly, without any conscious reaction; indeed,
the image of that bizarre creature and its barbaric rider burned itself into
his mind to the momentary exclusion of all else.
The rider had skin burnt brown by the sun and wind, but still paler than
the overman's own. He had dirty, ragged black hair trailing to his shoulders;
his features were contorted into an expression that conveyed nothing to his
inhuman observer; and his right arm was raised above his head, clutching a
long, curved, dull-gray sword, which was sweeping down and to the side, a
motion that, when combined with the forward charge of his mount, would bring
the blade sweeping into the eyes of Garth's warbeast.
This all flashed before the overman in seeming slow motion as he sat
frozen in astonishment. Then time started to resume its normal pace as he
brought his own blade up to meet and parry the attack.
 It was only after he heard the clash of steel on steel, heard the
warbeast roar in anger, felt it moving under him as it swung its head aside,
and felt himself slipping from the saddle that he realized the attacker was
not alone; at least a dozen of the strange animals and their barbaric riders
were approaching from a dozen directions.
The combination of utter unbelieving astonishment, the sudden thrashing
of his mount, and his own sideways lunge in parrying the first attack did what
it would ordinarily take several men to do; Garth lost his balance. Rather
than fight to regain it, which would waste precious seconds, he swung his legs
free and slid to the ground, standing beside his beast. This action also
served to guard his rear, as the furry bulk of the animal was almost as
impenetrable as a stone wall at his back.
Fortunately for the overman, his opponents were disorganized, attacking
without any order or plan. When he hit the ground he found the one facing him
all but motionless, while the others remained out of reach. Never one to miss
an opportunity, he drove his sword forward with all the power he could manage
at the extreme reach necessary to hit a mounted warrior; it was sufficient.
The point of the blade ripped through the man's fur jacket, through the rusty
mail underneath, and into his chest. He let out a gasping moan, and his eyes
sprang wide. Garth guessed he had pierced a lung. His face grim, the overman
withdrew his blade, unleashing a gout of blood from both the wound and the
man's gaping mouth. The barbarian fell forward and to the left, tumbling