Читать книгу Kane and the Flame - Ар'лан ис'Дрекхэм - Страница 5

The tracks led him to the ruins of an old chapel.

Once, a temple of the Order of Purity had stood here — the remnants of a stained glass window in the pointed arch, where pieces of blue and red glass could still be made out, and a pile of dressed stone that had once been a bell tower, testified to that. Now the building was half-collapsed, the roof had caved in, and a bush of elder grew in the doorway, covered in a strange, out-of-season frost that sparkled even in this damp climate.

Kane stopped at the entrance, listening. Inside was pitch dark, but he could smell it — that same sweet, church-like scent the merchant had mentioned.

Incense. And something else. Burnt wood. And… sweat? The salty, bitter smell of human fear and exhaustion.

He silently drew his sword — the blade left the scabbard with a soft whisper — and slipped inside, stepping soundlessly over the broken stone.

Inside, the chapel seemed larger than from outside. A dim, sickly light seeped through holes in the roof, picking out fragments of benches from the darkness, a crooked altar with a chipped top, a pile of rubbish in the corner — rotten boards, torn rags, gnawed bones.

And a figure.

Small, huddled against the wall, trying to blend into the stone. Arms wrapped around her knees, head bowed, long dark hair covering her face. She wore some kind of ragged tatters — a shapeless robe, clearly not her size, stolen off someone else’s back.

Kane stepped closer. A small pebble crunched under his sole. He kept his sword ready — old habits don’t die.

The figure by the wall didn’t move, but he noticed the shoulders tensing under the rags, the fingers gripping her knees tighter, the knuckles going white. She heard him. She was waiting.

“Hey,” he called softly. “Are you the one who burns demons?”

Silence. Then — a low, slightly hoarse voice. Tired, with no trace of fear, but with such steel inside it that Kane instinctively went on alert.

“I’m the one who wants to be left alone.”

Her head lifted.

Kane saw a face smeared with soot and grime, beneath which pale, almost translucent skin showed through. Huge eyes — amber, almost golden in this dim light — stared back at him, attentive, piercing. There was no ordinary human fear or hope in them. Only an ancient, frightening depth. They seemed to glow from within with their own inhuman light. Long dark hair, matted into tangles, singed at the ends. Sharp, aristocratic cheekbones, chapped, cracked lips, a thin neck where you could almost count every vein.

She was thin — too thin, almost transparent. Hungry. Exhausted. Beneath the torn clothes, sharp collarbones were visible and, surprisingly, a coiled tension, unnatural for such emaciation. The tension of a predator lying in ambush.

This wasn’t a girl. A young woman. About twenty. And there was nothing childish in her gaze. There was an abyss in it, one Kane didn’t particularly want to look into.

“Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was steady, without a tremor.

“Someone who got paid to find you,” Kane answered honestly. “And someone who hasn’t decided what to do about that yet.”

She blinked. Her amber eyes narrowed slightly, sliding over his face, the scar on his eyebrow, his stubbled cheek, his sword belt, the blade in his lowered hand. She seemed to see not just a hunter, but his entire life, all his scars, all his weariness.

“You’re not like the others,” she said quietly. “You don’t smell of greed.”

Kane grunted. A strange choice of words, but he was used to everything connected with magic sounding strange.

“What do I smell of, then?”

She paused, as if listening to something inside herself. Or sniffing — Kane had heard that some with magic blood had an animal’s sense of smell.

“Ashes,” she answered finally. “And that you also want to be left alone.”

That hit the bullseye, the sorest spot. Kane didn’t even know what to say.

Then, outside, in the fog, something crunched. Loudly, clearly — a branch under someone’s heavy foot.

He spun around instantly, raising his sword. Gray murk swirled in the doorway, and shadows could be made out within it. Many shadows. They were moving, flowing into each other, surrounding the chapel.

“We’ve been found,” the girl said. Calmly, as if talking about the weather. Too calmly for someone who should be screaming and hiding behind someone else’s back.

A sound came from the fog. A wet, gurgling cough that made Kane’s stomach turn cold.

Rattlers. And there were… a lot of them. More than he could count by ear.

“How many?” Kane asked curtly, not turning around. His voice was even, but his fingers tightened on his sword hilt.

“Twelve,” she answered just as curtly. “A thirteenth, a big one, hanging back. A Bonebreaker.”

Kane glanced sideways at her. She was standing — he hadn’t even noticed when she’d gotten up. Thin, almost transparent, but her stance showed breeding, training. The stance of someone who’d been taught to kill since childhood. Or to defend herself.

“You can see through the fog?”

“I can feel,” she corrected. “The fire inside knows where to extinguish.”

She stepped forward, drawing level with him. Kane saw that her eyes were glowing. Faintly, barely noticeably, with an amber warmth — but in the chapel’s twilight, it was enough to make out every line of her face.

“Don’t even think about it,” he snarled, grabbing her arm.

Her arm was thin as a twig, but beneath the skin stretched over her bones, muscles as hard as cables rolled. And hot. Too hot, as if she had a high fever.

“If you light up, they’ll come running from the whole district,” he hissed through his teeth. “There won’t be twelve, there’ll be a hundred. Drawn by the smell.”

“I know,” she didn’t pull her arm away, but she didn’t try to step back either. “But if I don’t light up, they’ll eat us right here. You heard them.”

Kane swore through his teeth — long, filthy, with feeling.

The wet cough came again, right at the entrance. The shadows in the doorway thickened, taking shape.

“Fine,” he said, releasing her arm. “Stay behind me. And if I say ‘burn’ — burn so that nothing’s left of this hole. Got it?”

She looked at him. For the first time in their conversation — with a slight, barely noticeable surprise, almost gratitude.

“Do you trust me?”

“I trust what I saw in the dead end by the wall,” Kane snapped. “You burned three and didn’t even choke on the smoke. That means you know how to control it. The only question is — how much.”

She was silent for a second. Then nodded, and there was something military, practiced, in that nod.

“I’ll try not to roast you ahead of schedule.”

Kane grunted. Her sense of humor was better than some of the mercenaries he’d drunk with at the Rotten Tooth.

The shadow in the doorway thickened to blackness, taking shape. A Rattler stepped inside — a shapeless clot of darkness, in which spindly limbs and a huge maw full of needle-like teeth could be made out. Behind it, a second. A third.

Kane struck first. The sword sank into its throat — sludge sprayed.

Shit.

He rolled away from the second one’s claws. Scrambled to his feet.

Kane expected screaming. Expected the girl to latch onto his back, shriek, and ruin everything. Instead—

“Left!” she shouted.

Kane ducked on pure instinct, and a clot of darkness whistled over his head, nearly taking it off. She wasn’t just yelling — she was reading the fight.

“Stay close!” he barked, settling into his stance.

“I haven’t gone anywhere,” came the voice right by his shoulder. The heat from her body burned his back even through his jacket, but her voice was calm. Creepily calm, like someone who had already said goodbye to life.

Not running. Not screaming. Watching his back, flashed through Kane’s mind as he cut down the third one. You don’t abandon people like that. Even if you were paid for them.