Читать книгу Legend. Dark kingdoms - Dmitry Nazarov - Страница 7

Time seemed to have stopped.

Mesmerized by gray eyes like a cloudy sky, I could not stop staring at him, and he seemed ready to tear down the glass separating us to hell, pounce on me and… tear me to pieces.

There was not enough air in my lungs, but I was afraid to breathe. It seemed that if I did this, he would not restrain himself and fulfill what his eyes and sharp fangs promised.

– Move, animal! – one of the soldiers who stood behind the stranger pulled with all his might on the chain that fastened the shackles on the prisoner’s hands, and the second hit him on the back with his fist.

I suspect that if they applied such force to me, I would lie like a broken doll on the floor of this dungeon, but the man did not make a sound. He only bit his fangs on his lip, from which drops of blood began to roll down his chin.

He didn’t even take his eyes off me, which made the goosebumps running down my back the size of African cockroaches.

Do you have hearing problems? Let’s go! – the shouting soldier approached the man from behind, but did not have time to swing and strike. He sharply moved the back of his head along his nose, and pulled the chain towards himself.

Even through the glass partition, a crunch heard in the silence distinctly reached us. The soldier fell to his knees clutching his nose, the blood from which began to flow down his arms.

Taking advantage of the fact that the colleagues of the wounded warrior were taken aback by surprise, the fanged stranger, with one kick of the leg, threw away the second soldier who was standing behind him, jumped over the shackles, putting his hands forward, and… growled furiously.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose from the horror that gripped me.

The prisoners in the neighboring cells seemed to have gone crazy, except for the demon sitting opposite, who was still pretending to be asleep, as if nothing had happened.

– Beat them, Skye!

– Fight!

– Kill!

Sky! Sky! Sky!

The deafening noise in the corridor began to get on my nerves. I had to cover my ears with my palms, but I did not tear my eyes away from the performance playing out in front of me. As if spellbound, she followed every movement of the man, afraid to miss the slightest detail.

If I have seen such fights before, it is only in Asian action movies, where the heroes run along the walls, kick each other in the stomach in flight and, in general, shine with exceptional acrobatic talent.

And here everything is before your eyes, how not to stare?

Moving with incredible speed, the stranger, with shackles on his hands, fought with two opponents, while the other two were still recovering. The warriors did not even have time to pull out their swords, since they had to defend themselves all the time.

The soldiers, to their credit, were also masters of their craft. Repulsing the attacks, they themselves, no, no, and inflicted painful blows to the man’s body, from which, however, he quickly recovered.

Some kind of inhuman regeneration was clearly involved here, since many blows were practically incompatible with life, at least with mine.

A couple of times the stranger, as far as his clasped hands allowed, grabbed the hoop around his neck, as if trying to rip it off himself, but nothing came of it.

Muscles were tense to the limit, and breath escaped from his lungs in short wheezes. Everything inside me tightened with tension, and I wanted everything to end quickly, and the people around, judging by their screams and knocking on the glass walls, this carnage only provoked me.

I don’t know how long it would have lasted if the soldier who had received a savory blow to the nose hadn’t pulled some black thing out of his pocket and, jumping on the prisoner’s back, hadn’t brought it to his neck.

With a loud roar, the man clutched at the hoop and fell to his knees. A terrible grin changed his beautiful face, making it look like a wounded beast.

Taking advantage of the situation, another soldier flew up to him and punched him in the face. Blood immediately poured out of his nose onto the floor.

Despite the fact that a few minutes ago he, judging by the expression on his face, was ready to bite his teeth into my throat, my heart sank with pity for him, and a tear crawled down my cheek. I had to close my eyes tightly and start counting to ten, as my grandmother taught me, when I was covered with a little panic.

I stopped counting at five when I heard the rattle of a key in the lock.

Four soldiers, putting the point of their swords to the prisoner’s neck, without even removing his shackles, pushed him into the same cell opposite us where the demon was sitting. Then, they locked the door, and, barely dragging their feet and cursing the «Hell animal,» as they called it, went to the exit.

The stranger, throwing a quick glance in our direction with Milana, turned away, exchanged a couple of obviously not affectionate words with the demon, jumped onto the top bunk and, as if nothing had happened, went to bed.

The people in the neighboring cells also finally calmed down.

– Milana, what happened now? I whispered in the ear of the «witch», still staring at the camera opposite.

– Old Marie once told me about werewolves. Outwardly, a man, but inside, a terrible beast lives, which can break free if given the will. I think that this is he, but the Maryin stone on the hoop interferes with the turn, that’s why he is tormented.

– Do you want to say that in this fabulous kingdom-state of yours, besides elves, demons and witches, werewolves also live? – the girl nodded and also stared at the next cell, though I don’t know which of the two prisoners she was looking at.

Suddenly, the light went out, and the abrupt darkness hit her pupils painfully. Not expecting this, I could not restrain a barely audible cry, and a disgusting laugh was heard from the next bed, where the dwarfs were located.

Milana took my hand.

«It seems to be a bedtime signal,» she remarked in a whisper, «the beds are on the right.» We will move along the wall by touch.

Already lying on the top bunk, without a blanket and on a hard cushion that served as a pillow for the local inhabitants, for some reason I thought not about the capricious fate that threw me into one of the darkest tales of the Brothers Grimm, but about the fact that I had to go to bed without cleaning teeth.

***

The last time, for a fight with local servicemen, he was locked up for a month in a dark punishment cell, only being let out into a quarry, where there was always a shortage of labor. Leaving today, Sky firmly decided to pull himself together and stop bullying the soldiers, since escaping from Kandugan would not help him anyway.

And look at him, less than ten minutes later, he got into a fight with four opponents, knowing that he had no chance of winning.

And all because of the Hell girl.

Approaching her cell, he felt like his beast seemed to go crazy. He began to roar, to break free, so much so that it seemed that even Mary’s stone was unable to restrain him. His eyes were covered with a red veil, and in his thoughts only one thing was beating «to crush and break.»

Skye didn’t remember him reacting like that to something in the past, so he began to look with his eyes for the source of this uncontrollable aggression. And what was his surprise when his eyes fell on a small blond baby, who, being in the cell opposite his own, huddled in a corner, clung to the red-haired girl.

Both of them were green-eyed, but if the redhead did not evoke any emotions in Sky, then the blonde’s deep, like whirlpool eyes bewitched him, attracted and beckoned. His fangs ached with the desire to taste her blood, and his throat was sharply dry with thirst.

The man tasted a vile taste of fear on his tongue… her fear. A cloudy wave of uncontrollable rage rolled over, and the mockery of the soldiers became the last straw.

Everything ended, as one might have guessed, not in his favor, and the broken nose was more like a blessing from the gods, because they could have been dragged back to the punishment cell.

And now… the beast had let off steam and was under control. But for how long?

– A little emaciated, little animal. Is the food really that bad in the punishment cell?

«Not a big price for not seeing your face for a whole month, horned deer,» the demon sitting on the floor, without opening his eyes, grinned.

– I can hear it in my voice, I’m bored.

– Yeah, all the pillows are in tears, – jumping onto the top bunk, Sky lay down, threw his hands behind his head, and began to look up.

He was tempted to ask Warlock about the two new cellmates, but you could never get a serious answer from this buffoon, and Sky was in the wrong mood for jokes right now.

Nothing, at breakfast he will be aware of all the missed news, you just have to wait.

***

What is that terrible sound? My ears will bleed now,» I shouted, sitting on the bed and holding my head in my hands.

– Breakfast time, bighead, – Sissy snapped back, jumping off the bed onto the floor, – get used to it.

Considering her height, I decided not to be offended by the «dylda», but at the word «breakfast», my stomach responded with a loud rumbling, reminding me that for the whole day yesterday, not even a drop of water had been in it. Today I intended to make up for this, and then, together with Milana, sit down to develop an escape plan.

Considering that we were imprisoned in this prison without trial or investigation, without even providing a lawyer, it was foolish to hope that they would be released soon. And I did not smile at all to spend the best years of my life within these walls.

Especially when a terrible animal walks nearby.

Unable to restrain myself, I shot my eyes in the direction of the cell opposite, where two men were sleeping calmly on the bunks, under the wild horn of a siren.