vantrop: переводы

→“Yeah,” I said. “Taught old Listens-to-Wind, the way I hear it.”

→“Jesus Remington Winchester Christ,” Wild Bill blurted in a strangled voice. “He’s a wizard?”

→Then he gave himself a little shake, bounded maybe four feet into the air off one massive foot, shimmered, and turned into a goddamned owl with a wingspan as long as a freaking car. The massive owl glided out over the tombstones, arcing to one side, and vanished into the night.

→“Simple is good,” River Shoulders said.

→“No time to get fancy,” I said. “Get behind them. You get two minutes. Then we’ll go right at them from this side, make plenty of noise, and draw their fire. Once we have their attention, you get in, get their sacrifice out. Then …” I brought my hands together in a silent clap.

→River Shoulders growled. It was a sound so low that I couldn’t hear it so much as feel it vibrating the bones of my skull. “Where you want me?”

→I slipped back down and away, unseen by the baddies. I returned to my allies and spoke in harsh, quick terms. “Seven. Six casters and a drummer. Cloaked, dark. I don’t know who or what they are. They’re with the Fomor, so they’re probably bad-guy leftovers from somewhere. They’re in a circle. They’ve got a prisoner.”

→And if Toot and his people hadn’t warned me, we would never have seen it coming. I wonder what it says about me that pizza has been one of the better long-term investments in my career.

→Hell’s bells. Seven necromancers could wreck Chicago all by themselves. Four of them nearly had done it, once. Five, if you counted me, which I didn’t, even though my entry in that evening’s animation festival had taken best in show. I could feel the intensity of the working they had underway. I didn’t know who they were, but they were pros. If they were allowed to finish, they could wreck the town without the help of any army of improbably conceived monsters.

→There was a lump on the ground in the center of the circle. I couldn’t see who it was, but it was human-shaped, if you allowed for some ropes for immobility. A human sacrifice, doubtless, for the ceremony’s finale. It remained the single most effective way to turbocharge black magic.

→Spread in a circle near Inez’s grave were seven cloaked figures, speaking in whispering voices in a breathy chant. One of them held a large drum on a shoulder strap and steadily struck it with a thick-headed drumstick in one hand. From there, I could sense the power of the circle around them, but they were making an effort to work magical forces without any sloppy inefficiencies of energy transfer, which generally manifested themselves as visible light. This was a stealthy working.

→“Heh,” rumbled River Shoulders. “Heh, heh, heh.”

→“Yippee,” I said. “That sounds like fun.”

→“We …” Ebenezar sighed. “Aye, fair enough.”

→“So,” I clarified, finding myself grinning irrationally, “we’re going to charge into the meat grinder as fast as we can to force her to hit us as hard as she can, and then hope that we can punch her lights out before the army gets here and starts killing everybody in sight.”

→“She doesn’t have time,” the old man said, his eyes glinting. “Mortal emergency response systems are already in motion. The National Guard is already mobilizing and on its way. They’ve got to bring up heavy equipment to clear the roads so they can get through, but they’ll be here by dawn. Maybe sooner.”

→“If they’ve got that many troops,” I said, “why should she? She can just grind us away.”

→The old man grimaced. “If we don’t stop the advance,” he said, “the battle won’t get that far. It won’t need to. She’ll have won already.” He shook his head. “We have to force her to use the Eye to get through us.”

→I frowned. “I thought the idea was to wait until Ethniu revealed herself.”

→“Well, we’re heading for the opening between the northernmost two,” he said. “And Etri and his people, along with the Summer Lady and the rest of her gang, are heading for the gap on the south side. The idea is to force the Fomor to a stop so that they have to bring up their heavy troops if they want to advance.”