Читать «Swords Of Lankhmar(Мечи Ланкмара)» онлайн

"I see we're expected," the small man said, continuing to stroll toward the large open gate in the long, high, ancient wall. As if by chance, his hand brushed the hilt of his long, slim rapier.

"At over a bowshot distance how can you — " the big man began. "I get it. Bashabeck's orange headcloth. Stands out like a whore in church. And where Bashabeck is, his bullies are. You should have kept your dues to the Thieves Guild paid up."

"It's not so much the dues," the small man said. "It slipped my mind to split with them after the last job, when I lifted those eight diamonds from the Spider God's temple."

The big man sucked his tongue in disapproval. "I sometimes wonder why I associate with a faithless rogue like you."

The small man shrugged. "I was in a hurry. The Spider God was after me."

"Yes, I seem to recall he sucked the blood of your lookout man. You've got the diamonds to make the payoff now, of course?"

"My purse is as bulging as yours," the small man asserted. "Which is exactly as much as a drunk's wineskin the morning after. Unless you're holding out on me, which I've long suspected. Incidentally, isn't that grossly fat man — the one between the two big-shouldered bravos — the keeper of the Silver Eel tavern?"

The big man squinted, nodded, then rocked his head disgustedly. "To make such a to-do over a brandy tab."

"Especially when it couldn't have been much more than a yard long," the small man agreed. "Of course there were those two full casks of brandy you smashed and set afire the last night you were brawling at the Eel."

"When the odds are ten to one against you in a tavern fight, you have to win by whatever methods come easiest to hand," the big man protested. "Which I'll grant you are apt at times to be a bit bizarre."

He squinted ahead again at the small crowd ranged around the square inside the open gate. After a while he said, "I also make out Rivis Rightby the swordsmith… and just about all the other creditors any two men could have in Lankhmar. And each with his hired thug or three." He casually loosened in its scabbard his somewhat huge weapon, shaped like a rapier, but heavy almost as a broadsword. "Didn't you settle _any_ of our bills before we left Lankhmar the last time? I was dead broke, of course, but you must have had money from all those earlier jobs for the Thieves Guild."

"I paid Nattick Nimblefingers in full for mending my cloak and for a new gray silk jerkin," the small man answered at once. He frowned. "There must have been others I paid — oh, I'm sure there were, but I can't recall them at the moment. By the by, isn't that tall rangy wench — half behind the dainty man in black — one you were in trouble with? Her red hair stands out like a… like a bit of Hell. And those three other girls — each peering over her besworded pimp's shoulder like the first — weren't you in trouble with them also when we last left Lankhmar?"