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

breastplate and green kilt of an Ethsharitic soldier and forgot everything but
that they faced an enemy and an opportunity for glory.
He got the crossbow free, but the bowstring fouled on the same
overhanging branch the sword had hit. With a curse, Valder dropped it, leaving
it hanging, and stepped forward. He had the magic sword Wirikidor, the slayer
of warriors, he told himself; what had he to fear?
The first northerner stopped a dozen feet away, apparently puzzled that
the quarry had not run off to be chased down like a fleeing deer. His comrades
came up behind him. All three stared at Valder and the naked steel in his
hand.
 The leader called something; Valder guessed it was a demand that he
surrender.
"I don't understand a word," he called back.
The three northerners conversed for a moment; then one of them called
tentatively, "You fight?"
"I'm not surrendering, if that's what you mean," Valder replied. Seeing
the confusion that resulted, he decided this was obviously too much for the
northerner's limited vocabulary and called his clarification. "Yes, I fight."
"Ah!" Three swords were drawn, and the northern leader advanced. Valder
guessed him to be perhaps eighteen, the others younger.
Wirikidor seemed to drag him forward to meet his opponent. He did not
bother to pretend that he was controlling his actions as steel clashed.
The other two hung back, and Valder quickly realized why. The lead
northerner, despite his youth, was a superb swordsman, probably his divisional
champion. His blade flickered like heat lightning in a summer sky. His
companions could only have been in the way.
This obvious skill did not bother Wirikidor in the slightest. It
countered each blow with supernatural speed and, when the northerner faltered
in surprise, it swept past his guard and plunged into his throat.
Wirikidor, Valder thought, seemed to have a liking for throats. He
wondered if that were in any way significant. He wrenched the blade away as
soon as it had finished ripping open the northerner's neck.
The northerner collapsed in a lifeless heap, his sword rattling from a
tree root.
His comrades stared at their fallen leader in astonished dismay. Valder
stepped forward, waiting for Wirikidor to take on the next one.
Wirikidor did nothing; all Valder's advance did was to snap the nearer
northerner out of his stunned inaction.
His sword swung for Valder's throat, and it was all the Ethsharite could
do to bring Wirikidor up in time to parry.
Startled by his sword's failure to act on its own, Valder fell back
several steps before the northerner's assault and took a small gash on his
upper arm before regaining control. Fortunately, this second youth was far
less skilled than the first, and the third northerner was still too
disconcerted to join the battle.
"Damn you, Wirikidor!" Valder cried, "Why aren't you fighting?"
There was no response. The sword acted like any ordinary sword, utterly
inanimate. Valder had passed the minimum competence tests in swordsmanship in
order to acquire his rank of Scout First Class, but he was by no means an
expert swordsman, nor even very good -- however, luck was with him; the