Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗

"Get him!" They hurled themselves against the leashes, baying and gaping with wide red mouths and long white fangs.

"Get him!" Barnard urged, and at the same time restrained them. The fury in his voice enraged the animals, and they leapt against the leashes so that Barnard was almost pulled off his feet.

"Please!" screamed Oliver, struggling to rise, toppling back, then crawling towards where his crutch was propped against the stone wall.

Barnard slipped the hounds. They bounded across the yard and Oliver had time only to lift his hands to cover his face before they were on him.

They bowled him over and sent him rolling over the cobbles, then slashed at him with snapping jaws. One went for his face, but he lifted his arm and it buried its fangs in his elbow. Oliver was shirtless and the other hound caught him in the belly. Both held on.

From high on the scaffold Hal was powerless to intervene. Gradually Oliver's screams grew weaker and his struggles ceased. Barnard and his hounds never let up. they went on worrying the body long after the last flutter of life had been extinguished. Then Barnard gave the mutilated body one last kick and stepped back. He was panting wildly and sweat slimed his face and dripped onto his shirtfront, but he lifted his head and grinned up at Hal. He left Oliver's body lying on the cobbles until the end of the work shift when he singled out Hal and Daniel. "Throw that piece of offal on the dung heap behind the castle. He will be more use to the seagulls and crows than he ever was to me." And he chuckled with glee when he saw the murder in Hal's eyes.

When spring came round again only eight were left. Yet the eight were tempered by these hardships. Every muscle and sinew stood proud beneath the tanned and weathered skin of Hal's chest and arms. The palms of his hands were tough as leather, and his fingers powerful as a blacksmith's tongs. When he broke up a fight a single blow from one of his scarred fists could drop a big man to the paving.

The first promise of spring dispersed the gale-driven clouds, and the sun had new fire in its rays. A restlessness took over from the resigned gloom that had possessed them all during winter. Tempers were short, fighting among them more frequent, and their eyes looked often to the far mountains, from which the snows had thawed or turned out across the blue Atlantic.

Then there came a message from Aboli in Sukeena's hand. "Sabah sends greetings to A. Bobby and his mother pine for him." It filled them all with a wild and joyous hope that, in truth, had no firm foundation for Sabah and his band could only help them once they had passed the bitter-almond hedge.

Another month passed, and the wild flame of hope that had lit their hearts sank to an ember. Spring came in its full glory, and turned the mountain into a prodigy of wild flowers whose colours stunned the eye, and whose perfume reached them even on the high scaffold. The wind came singing out of the south-east, and the sun birds returned from they knew not where, setting the air afire with their sparkling plumage.

Then there was a laconic message from Sukeena and Aboli. "It is time to go. How many are you?"

That night they discussed the message in whispers that shook with excitement. "Aboli has a plan. But how can he get all of us away?"

"For me he is the only horse in the race," Big Daniel growled. "I'm laying every penny I have on him."

"If only you had a penny to lay." Ned chuckled. It was the first time Hal had heard him laugh since Oliver had been ripped to pieces by Barnard's dogs.

"How many are going?" Hal asked. "Think on it a while, lads, before you give answer." In the bad light he looked around the circle of heads, whose expressions turned grim. "If you stay here you will go on living for a while at least, and no man will think the worse of you.

If we go and we do not reach the mountains, then you all saw the way my father and Oliver died. "Twas not a fitting death for an animal, let alone a man."

Althuda spoke first. "Even if it were not for Bobby and my woman, I would go."

"Aye!"said Daniel, and'Aye!"said Ned.

"That's three," Hal murmured, "What about you, William Rogers?"

"I'm with you, Sir Henry."

"Don't test me, Billy. I have told you not to call me that." Hal frowned. When they used his title he felt himself a fraud, for he was not worthy of the honour that his grandfather had won at the right hand of Drake. The title that his father had carried with such distinction.

"Your last chance, Master Billy. If your tongue trips again I'll kick some sense into the other end of you. Do you hear?"

"Aye, I hear you sweet and clear, Sir Henry." Billy grinned at him, and the others roared with laughter as Hal caught him by the scruff of his neck and boxed his ears. They were all bubbling over with excitement all, that was, but Dick Moss and Paul Hale.

"I've grown too old for a lark such as this, Sir Hal. My bones are so stiff I could not climb a pretty lad if you tied him over a barrel for me, let alone climb a mountain." Dick Moss the old pederast grinned. "Forgive me, Captain, but Paul and me have talked it over, and we'll stay on here where we'll get a bellyful of stew and a bundle of straw each night."

"Perhaps you are wiser than the rest of us." Hal nodded, and he was not saddened by the decision. Dicky was long past his glory days when he had been the man to beat to the masthead when they reefed sail in a full gale. This last winter had stiffened his limbs and greyed his hair. He would be non-paying cargo to carry on this voyage. Paul was Dicky's ship-wife. They had been together for twenty years, and though Paul was still a fury with a cutlass in his hand he would stay with his ageing lover.

"Good luck to both of you. You're as good a pair as I ever sailed with," Hal said, and looked at Wally Finch and Stan Sparrow. "What about you two birds? Will you fly with us, lads?"