SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Фантастика и фэнтези, Фэнтези, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

This anthology includes 120 authors—who contributed 230 works totaling approximately
words of fiction. These pieces all originally appeared in 2014, 2015, or 2016 from writers who are new professionals to the SFF field, and they represent a breathtaking range of work from the next generation of speculative storytelling.
All of these authors are eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016. We hope you’ll use this anthology as a guide in nominating for that award as well as a way of exploring many vibrant new voices in the genre.

Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

“My ladies.” The old fairy bowed, drawing a long rapier with a flourish which trimmed his second’s long mustache. “Well met. I am the—ah—former Duke of Berrymines. This is my son, Broad Benjamin.”

“This match is already ours,” Alex snickered into La Héron’s ear as she moved to negotiate the bout. La Héron sighed but could not disagree.

“Do not fall into greed,” La Héron could only caution her. Alex shrugged, but was careful in her negotiations. In addition to the same terms as the first match, she got the big second to agree that La Héron would lose “nothing which would be missed” in case of a loss.

The old duke dropped into a low crouch and extended a wobbly blade in La Héron’s direction, listing to the right the longer he stood still. His first limp thrust licked the air to her left a good three feet wide of her hip. Expecting a trick, La Héron held back, tapping her opponent’s blade away with care when he stumbled at her with a second overambitious lunge. Alex rolled her eyes from the tree line.

When the old fellow’s third lunge appeared bound directly toward the dirt at La Héron’s feet, she stepped forward and aimed a steady blade at his unprotected shoulder. With his weight behind the drooping thrust, his tip was likely to become stuck in the earth, and one hit might easily become three. This match which had already come to embarrass her would be at an end. Alex grinned as Broad Benjamin slid down the tree next to her to hunker on his broad bottom.

But the ex-duke’s sword never did sink into the ground. A snail the size of a fist glistened in the moonlight as it passed between them, finding itself exactly at the point in the crossroads where the doomed thrust was bound. Berrymines’s rapier hit the center of the tiny spiral and slid off its shell with a muted tink. With nothing to support his weight, the old fairy fell flat on his stomach as the tip of his blade deflected upward just enough to draw a line along the surface of the road and to pierce the leather of La Héron’s boot.

“God’s blood!” La Héron barked, nearly tripping on the man’s head and stumbling into the space where his shoulder used to be. She hopped on one foot, trying to regain her balance as a telltale stickiness seeped from the cut at her ankle. Broad Benjamin looked up, startled.

“First blood?” he asked cautiously. Alex looked stricken. La Héron swore again and limped angrily away from her fallen opponent.

“Yes, dammit,” she growled. “Get up, you old fool.”

“My deepest apologies, madame, my most sincere apologies.…” Berry¬mines kowtowed as he struggled to his feet. La Héron stomped on the snail and kicked its cracked shell out of her way as she took up her position again.

En garde! ” she snapped.

She did not hold back this time. Berrymines was barely in position when she attacked, cutting with quick, short strokes toward his torso. He scrambled backward, pinwheeling her blade away when he was lucky enough to hit it, trying to prevent her from coming within striking range. When he tripped the second time, she stepped back, assuming a defensive position and a suspicious look.

The ex-duke landed on his rear end with a shout of surprise. His boot was trapped awkwardly under an exposed cedar root that pulled up like a submerged rope the more he tried to shake his foot free. La Héron waited with increasing impatience as he jerked and pulled, packed earth spraying as the very veins of the forest tore toward the surface. The ground around La Héron’s feet shook and shifted as buried roots crested.

“Stop that,” La Héron demanded, taking staggered steps to avoid getting caught in the roots herself.

“My apologies, my apologies,” Berrymines muttered, the forest’s very underpinnings coming loose the more violent his thrashing became. “I’ve just got to get unstuck, you see—”

“Trickery!” Alex yelled, reaching for the sword at her own belt. “Be still, old man, or I will—”

“Arh!” La Héron cried out as a net of roots wound its way around her foot and pulled. She fell backward, dropping her sword. The blade bounced on the churning earth, twisted midair, and caught her on the forearm.

“Second blood,” Broad Benjamin called, looking amused from where he was still sitting under the tree.

“Isn’t!” Alex gasped. “It was her own blade that cut her!”

“Counts, I think.” Broad Benjamin shrugged. “She’s bleeding.”

“You knobbly bastard,” Alex growled, advancing on the seated creature with her sword drawn. Even without rising to his feet, he stared her down eye to eye.

“Sister Birdsong!” La Héron rebuked her, unsnagging her foot and standing. “Help the ex-duke up, now.”

“Very kind, very kind,” Berrymines tittered, lolling about on the ground. The forest had ceased its quaking as he stopped struggling. Alex ground her teeth audibly as she violently sheathed her sword. Her handling of the ex-duke was also less than gentle, but the old fairy was soon on his feet and armed once more. La Héron resumed her position and Alex resumed hers, looking grim.

“Are you ready?” La Héron asked simply.

“I am,” Berrymines replied with a short bow.

La Héron lowered her sword and walked casually up to her wavering opponent, past the tip of his sword, which quivered too late as if it couldn’t decide how to follow her. She stood next to him as if he were unarmed and smiled. Then she poked him in the thigh three times in quick succession.

“Match,” she said to him, bowing a final time and sheathing her sword. Alex’s jaw dropped, though the elf-lords merely shook their heads.

“Why did that work? Why didn’t he spit you like a pig?” Alex demanded, rushing to La Héron’s side and looking her over. “You sure you haven’t stubbed your toe, or—”

“It doesn’t take any luck at all to skewer an opponent who offers themselves to you,” La Héron explained. “Just a straight, simple shot.”

The former Duke of Berrymines bowed, unperturbed, in acknowledgement of her assessment. “Well played, madame, well played. I never have been very good at doing things the easy way, I’m afraid.”

“You’re amazing!” Alex enthused as they escorted the stumbling fairies back to the inn. “How do you feel? Any different? What did you win?”

La Héron shrugged and stretched her arms, inspecting her hands. “I have no idea. I do feel rather alive. Probably the excitement of the match!”

“Oh, no, madame,” Berrymines said, leaning heavily on her arm. “I’ve given you the last twenty years of my life.” He blinked sleepily. “I wasn’t going to do much with them anyway.”

Alex stopped walking and stared at the old fairy in shock. “You’ve given her twenty years of life ? ’Sblood!” She started walking again, deep in thought. “You lot give God a run for his money.” La Héron shot her a sharp glance, but Alex looked away.

Their celebrations were short-lived. They received their third summons just before dawn. Chuinard delivered the note, his face as white as a sheet.

“You’re to fight Herlechin himself,” he told La Héron. “He insisted, and they gave it to him. He has never been defeated by a child of God. Not in six hundred years.”

Their match was fixed for midday. Alex and La Héron sparred before breakfast, both needing the physical release only the clash of swords could bring, but they were driven inside again by thunder and clouds which rolled in from the sea like Heaven’s host shrouded in black billows. As the church bells started to ring for morning mass, raindrops as fat as mice fell all at once over the city of Caen, flooding the streets. La Héron sat at the water-cloaked windows of the Trois Tours watching the river forming outside.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x