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bring the same bounty or are a bit cheaper? Stop it! Stop it right there! He bit his lip, hard,
feeling another round of shakes coming on  just like back at Teshgol, when he saw the
mutilated corpses for the first time. You have to be absolutely calm, you ll be shooting
soon& yes, like that, relax and meditate& like that&
He was lying flat on the cold sand, minutely examining the sentry s silhouette. No helmet
(and rightly so, can t hear anything in one of those things), so best aim for the head.
Interesting, huh?  here s a man standing, looking at the stars, thinking of pleasant (to him)
things, not knowing that he s already dead. Meanwhile the  dead man looked enviously at
his seven buddies by the fire (three to the south, three to the north, one to the west, between
the fire and the slope), and then turned away furtively, produced a flask, took a swig,
belched and wiped his lips noisily. Great!.. quite sloppy& wonder how his northern
counterpart would like that? Suddenly Haladdin s heart lurched and dropped somewhere
into the void: it s begun! Begun quite a while ago, too, while he, the idiot! had almost
missed it, just like the baron, another simpleton& For the northern sentry was already
sagging lifelessly to the ground, resting in Tzerlag s firm embrace. Another moment, and
the scout carefully and silently put the Easterling s body down on the sand and flowed, like a
fox into a rabbit hutch, into the circle of light filled with sleeping forms.
Slowly, as if in a dream, Haladdin rose to one knee and drew the bow; in the corner of his
right eye he saw the baron, crouching for a lunge. The sentry must have seen some
movement in the dark after all, but instead of shouting an alarm he started (imagine such
lucky stupidity!) reflexively putting away the illegal flask. The moment of delay was
enough for Haladdin to pull the butt of the arrow to his chin and habitually drop the aim an
inch below the target  the clearly backlit head of the sentry; twenty paces, a stationary
target, even a baby won t miss. He did not even feel the pain of the bowstring slamming his
left arm, for it was immediately followed by the dry and loud, as if into wood, thwack of the
arrow hitting home. The Easterling threw up his hands  the unlucky flask still clutched in
one  turned on a heel and slowly dropped. The baron sprinted forward and was already
past the dead man when a muffled cry sounded from the fire  the sergeant s scimitar
slammed into one of the three men lying to the north of the fire, and the silence immediately
shattered into a thousand screaming, howling shards.
Haladdin followed his orders by circling the camp, staying outside the circle of light and
yelling in different voices:  Surround them, guys, let no sumbitch escape! and suchlike.
Instead of scattering, the sleep-addled mercenaries instinctively stayed by the fire. On the
southern approach Tangorn hit three of them; one immediately folded, clutching his
stomach, and the baron snatched his sword  a wide and, Tulkas be praised, straight one 
tossing away the scimitar he had to use initially. The light of the fire fell on his face, and the
two remaining Easterlings abruptly dropped their weapons and ran off, screaming:  Gheu,
gheu! (a kind of vampire into which unburied dead are supposed to turn). Surprised,
Haladdin was slow to open up on them and apparently missed both  in any event, they
vanished into the darkness. In the commotion Tzerlag had wounded another  northern
Easterling and was now calling out from the side:  Hey, Eloar, you coward, where are you?
34
The Last Ring-bearer
I came to you to exact the blood-price of Teshgol!
 I m here, you spawn of Morgoth, a scornful voice replied,  Come over, I ll scratch you
behind the ears! and, addressing his troops now:  No panic, carrion eaters! There re only
three of them, we ll do them like babies! Kill the slanted-eyes, he s the chief, and stay away
from their archer!
The Elf appeared beside the fire on the right  tall, golden-haired, clad in light leather armor
 his every move and every feature conveying a bewitching impression of sinuous deadly
power. He resembled his sword  a thin shimmering ray of bluish starlit ice, the very look
of it sent shivers through Haladdin. Tzerlag swung his scimitar with a hoarse cry  a feint to
the face and an immediate right arc to the knee; Eloar parried the blow casually, and even a
field medic (second class) knew right away that the sergeant has bitten off more than he
could chew. The master of stealth and infiltration has met a master of the sword, and the
only question now was whether he d be finished off in two or three thrusts. Tangorn
understood it best, so he raced across the fifteen yards separating him from the fight in a
flash and laid into the Elf from the left, yelling at the haphazardly retreating scout:  Cover
my back, dumbass!
A professional at work (no matter what profession) is always fascinating to watch, and here
there were two pros of the highest caliber. Too bad that all of the few spectators were too
busy with their own affairs to admire the show  mostly they were trying to kill each other,
which takes a certain amount of concentration. Nevertheless both partners put their all into
their work, their tightly choreographed moves fitting precisely in the gaps of the deadly lace
being crocheted by their shining blades. Tangorn s remark about covering his back was
quite a propos  the sergeant immediately had to take on the two remaining Easterlings, one [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]