The Silver Stair

Начало книги

The thick iron chains were uncomfortably heavy. Beneath the manacles, sores festered that the creature could not scratch. He did his best to ignore the pain and concentrated instead on the cries of the gulls circling overhead. With each breath, he pulled as much fresh air as possible into his lungs. The air was crisp, almost brittle, on this late fall morning, and it was laced with the scent of sea bass that had been caught a number of hours ago and was now threatening to spoil. It carried with it a worse and all-too-familiar odor-the stench of his captors. The creature growled softly and gritted his teeth as a whip struck his back.

"Move!" A grim-faced sea barbarian cracked the whip again. "Faster, you stinking beast!" There were other words that were more vicious-sounding, an unending stream of expletives that the barbarian thought the creature could not understand and that he rattled off for his own pleasure. "You're the slowest of the lot! Move!"

Читать дальше →