Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗
Hal ignored her. He ran back into the cave, pulled on his clothing hastily and belted on the Neptune sword. There will be fighting and great danger, but you will be safe if you stay here until it is over," he told her, and started down.
"You cannot leave me alone here!" she screamed after him. "Come back here, I command you!"
But he took no notice of her pleas and raced down the footpath through the trees. I should never have allowed her to tempt me from my father's side, he lamented silently as he ran. He warned me of the danger of the red comet. I deserve whatever cruel fate awaits me now.
He was in such distress that he was oblivious to all but the need to take up his neglected duties and almost ran full tilt into the lines of skirmishing soldiers moving through the trees ahead of him. just in time, he smelt the smoke of their burning match and then picked out their green doublets and the white cross belts as they wove their way through the trees of the forest. He flung himself to the ground and rolled behind the trunk of a tall wild fig tree. He peered out from behind it, and saw that the strange green-clad ranks were moving away from him, advancing on the encampment, pikes and muskets at the ready, keeping good order under the direction of a white officer.
Hal heard the officer call softly in Dutch, "Keep your spacing. Do not bunch up!" There could be no doubt now whose troops these were.
The Dutchman's back was still turned, and Hal had a moment's respite to think. I must reach the camp to warn my father, but there is not enough time to find a way round. I will have to fight my way through the enemy ranks. He drew the sword from its scabbard and rose on one knee, then paused as a thought struck him with force. We are outnumbered on land and on the water. This time there are no fireships to drive off the Buzzard and the Dutch frigate. The battle may go hard for us.
Using the point of his sword, he scratched a hole in the soft, loamy soil at the base of the wild fig. Then he slipped the ring from his finger and the locket with the miniature of his mother from his pocket and dropped them into the hole. After that he lifted the seal of the Nautonnier from his neck and laid it on top of his other treasures. He swept the loose soil back over them, and tamped it down with the flat of his hand.
It had taken him only a minute but when he started to his feet the Dutch officer had disappeared into the forest ahead. Hal crept forward, guided to his quarry by the rustle and crackle of the undergrowth. Without their officers these men will not fight so well, he thought. If I can take this one I will quench some of the fire in their bellies. He slowed as he drew closer to the man he was stalking, and came up behind the Dutchman as he pushed his way through the undergrowth, the noise of his progress masking the fainter sounds of Hal's approach.
The Dutchman was sweating in dark wet patches down the back of his serge coat. By his epaulettes Hal realized that he was a lieutenant in the Company's army. He was thin and lanky, with angry red pustules studding the back of his scrawny neck. He carried his bared sword in his right hand. He had not bathed for many days and smelt like a wild boar.
"On guard, Mij nheer!" Hal challenged him in Dutch, for he could not run him through the back. The lieutenant spun round to face him, lifting his blade into the guard.
His eyes were pale blue, and they flew wide with shock and fright as he found Hal so close behind him. He was not much older than Hal, and his face blanched with terror, emphasizing the rash of purple acne that covered his chin.
Hal thrust and their blades rasped as they crossed. He recovered swiftly, but with that first light touch he had assessed his adversary.
The Dutchman was slow and his wrist lacked the snap and power of a practised swordsman. His father's words rang in his ears. "Fight from the first stroke. Do not wait until you are angry." And he gave his heart over to a cold, murderous rage to kill. "Ha!" he grunted, and feinted high, aiming the point at the Dutch, mans eyes but balanced for his parry. The lieutenant was slow to counter, and Hal knew he could risk the flying attack that Daniel had taught him against such a foe. He could go for the quick kill.
His wrist tempered to steel by hours with Aboli on the practice deck, he caught up the Dutchman's blade, and whirled it with a stirring motion that threw the point off the line of defence. He had created an opening, but to exploit it with the flying attack he must open his own guard and place himself in full jeopardy of the Dutchman's natural riposte suicide in the face of a skilled opponent.
He committed himself, throwing his weight forward over his left foot, and sped his point in through the other man's guard. The riposte came too late, and Hal's steel spiked through the sweat-stained serge cloth. It glanced off a rib and then found the gap between them. Despite the days he had spent with a sword in his hand this was Hal's first kill with the cold steel, and he was unprepared for the sensation of his blade running through human flesh.
It was a soggy, dead feeling, which smothered the speed of his thrust. Lieutenant Maatzuyker gasped and dropped his own sword as Hal's point stopped at last against his spine. He clutched at Hal's razor-sharp blade with bare hands. It slashed his palms to the bone, severing the sinews in a quick flush of bright blood. His fingers opened nervelessly, and he sank to his knees staring up into Hal's face with watery blue eyes, as though he were about to burst into tears.
Hal stood over him, and tugged at the sapphire pommel of the Neptune sword, but the Toledo blade clung fast in the wet flesh. Maatzuyker gasped in agony and held up his mutilated hands in appeal.
"I am sorry," Hal whispered in horror, and heaved again on his sword hilt. This time Maatzuyker opened his mouth wide and whimpered. The blade had passed through his right lung, and a sudden gout of blood burst through his pale lips, poured down his coat front and splashed Hal's boots.
"Oh God!" Hal muttered, as Maatzuyker toppled backwards with the blade between his ribs. For a moment, he stood helplessly, watching the other man choke on and drown in his own blood. Then, close behind him, came a wild shout from the bushes.
A green-jacketed soldier had spotted him. A musket boomed, the pellets rattled into the foliage above Hal's head and -sang off the tree trunk beside him. He was galvanized. All along he had known what he must do but, until that moment, he had not been able to bring himself to do it. Now he placed his booted heel firmly on Maatzuyker's heaving chest and leaned back against the resistance of the trapped blade. He tugged once and then again with all his weight behind it. Reluctantly the blade slid out until suddenly it came free and Hal reeled backwards.
