The Sworn Sword — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

He would cut off a man's fingers to get at them, but with women he preferred to bite. There were no songs about him that Dunk knew. Outlaws or poachers, makes no matter. Dead men make poor company. He walked Thunder slowly around the cage. The empty eyes seemed to follow him. One of the dead men had his head down and his mouth gaping open. He has no tongue, Dunk observed. He supposed the crows might have eaten it. Crows always pecked a corpse's eyes out first, he had heard, but maybe the tongue went second. Or maybe a lord had it torn out, for something that he said.

Dunk pushed his fingers through his mop of sun-streaked hair. The dead were beyond his help, and they had casks of wine to get to Standfast. ""Which way did we come?"" he asked, looking from one road to the other. ""I'm turned around"".

""Standfast is that way, ser"". Egg pointed.

""That's for us, then. We could be back by evenfall, but not if we sit here all day counting flies"". He touched Thunder with his heels and turned the big destrier toward the left-hand fork.

Egg put his floppy hat back on and tugged sharply at Maester's lead. The mule left off cropping at the devilgrass and came along without an argument for once. He's hot as well, Dunk thought, and those wine casks must be heavy.

The summer sun had baked the road as hard as brick. Its ruts were deep enough to break a horse's leg, so Dunk was careful to keep Thunder to the higher ground between them. He had twisted his own ankle the day they left Dosk, walking in the black of night when it was cooler.

A knight had to learn to live with aches and pains, the old man used to say. Aye, lad, and with broken bones and scars. They're as much a part of knighthood as your swords and shields. If Thunder was to break a leg, though… well, a knight without a horse was no knight at all."

"Egg followed five yards behind him, with Maester and the wine casks. The boy was walking with one bare foot in a rut and one out, so he rose and fell with every step.

His dagger was sheathed on one hip, his boots slung over his backpack, his ragged brown tunic rolled up and knotted around his waist. Beneath his wide-brimmed straw hat, his face was smudged and dirty, his eyes large and dark. He was ten, not quite five feet tall. Of late he had been sprouting fast, though he had a long long way to grow before he'd be catching up to Dunk. He looked just like the stableboy he wasn't, and not at all like who he really was.