"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 1 - The Misenchanted Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

southern sorcerers almost as scarce. Neither side, it seemed, got much use
from witchcraft, and that was another mystery.
He peered out at the surrounding gloom and again spotted the northerner
he had seen before, at the very edge of the circle of light. That, Valder
thought, was probably the one who had ignited the hut. He was slowly circling
closer to the burning structure, obviously looking for any sign that his
intended victims had escaped. Valder could make out one of the intricate metal
wands used by combat sorcerers cradled in the northerner's arms; he gave up
any thought of fighting the man on even terms and perhaps killing him before
his companions could arrive. One of those wands could rip a man to pieces
almost instantaneously, from a dozen paces away.
Something exploded with a bang and a tinkling of glass somewhere inside
the flaming hut, and Valder remembered the shelves and cabinets crowded with
jars and boxes. He guessed that several more would probably explode when the
flames reached them.
The northerner turned at the sound, wand held ready, and Valder looked
desperately for some way to take advantage of the instant of surprise. He
found none.
If the man came closer, Valder estimated, ambush was a possibility; at
close enough range, sorcery would be no better than a sword, and a knife might
be better than either. Thinking of the wizard's dagger, he realized that the
sound of the old man's incantation had stopped. That reminded him of the drawn
blood, and he glanced at his injured hand.
His mouth fell open in horror; instead of a simple scratch, he saw the
flesh laid open to the bone, blood spilling out thickly, as if half-congealed.
When his jaw fell, more blood poured out, running down his beard and into the
mud -- yet he felt no pain save for a slight twinge in his hand.
Confused and frightened, he looked at the wizard and shrank back
involuntarily; the old man was obviously horribly dead. His skin was
corpse-white, splotched with cyanotic blue-gray, and blood dribbled from his
nose and mouth. His arm was a mangled ruin, and his throat cut open clear to
his spine.
"Gods!" Valder gasped. The spell must have gone wrong, he thought; he had
heard of spells backfiring. Backfires were what made magical research so
deadly.
The old man smiled, his expression unspeakably hideous through the
half-dried blood. "The Sanguinary Deception," he whispered. "Looks awful,
doesn't it?"
"You're alive?" Valder had difficulty accepting it, despite the old man's
movement and speech.
 "Of course I'm alive. So are you, and you probably look worse than I do.
It's a simple trick, but effective; doesn't the army use it any more?"
"I don't know," Valder said, staring in fascination at the hermit.
"Well, it's a good trick, and if they aren't using it, they're fools.
Now, shut up and lie still, and they'll think we're dead."
Valder stared at the old man for another second, then slumped back and
did his best to look dead.
Something else shattered amid the flames, and a loud clatter followed;
Valder guessed that a shelf had given way, spilling its entire contents. He
stole a glance at the hermit and saw that the old man was no longer smiling at