"Adams, Robert - Horseclans 01 - The Coming of the Horseclans" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

"Why, Mara?"

"Poor Milo," she replied. "Death will come quickly and there will be no more pain if I was wrong, but I don't think that I,.. ahhh!"

The initial gush of blood had rapidly dwindled to a slow trickle and her sigh announced its total cessation as what should have been a death-wound began to close. Milo's eyes, too, closed, and he clenched his teeth, saying between them, "I should have slam you, Mara. You guessed, didn't you, back there, below that hill? Well, now you know! What intend you to do with that knowledge, the knowledge that Milo, the War Chief, bears what your people call the Curse of the Undying?"

She did not answer, but he felt her weight return to the Ehleenoee bed, and he opened his eyes just as she lowered icr face on his and pasted her dark red lips onto his half-open mouth. Both their faces then became shrouded from the world in the blue-black luxuriance of her musk-scented hair.

When she at last raised herself, she was weeping again, but now there was joy in her sloe-black eyes and a whole plethora of inexpressible emotions played over her lovely features as she began to speak.

"What do I want? Why, dear dear Milo, all that I want is you. I wanted you, simply as a man, before I was aware you might be aught else. It has been so very long and I have been so terribly lonely, but. . . you too know of that kind of loneliness, don't you? Now, we are together and we shall never know of that loneliness again, my love."

Milo bolted erect, his every nerve tingling. "Mara, you mean... you, too ... ?"

The smile never left her lips or her eyes as, again picking up the bloody dagger, she placed that point which had so recently drunk of Mile's blood in the crook of her left arm. She thrust, slowly; thrust so deeply that steel grated against slender bone and the thick, red richness of her life fluid gushed high, upon the already bloody blade.

Milo jerked a wadded sheet to him and reached for her, but she drew back, still smiling. "Oh no, my Milo. Wait and watch. There is no danger."

Her bloodflow ceased as quickly as had his and, within a half-hour, both their wounds had become only pinkish-red scars.

Blind Hari smiled to himself, humming a snatch of a bard song, as he fitted a new string to his telling-harp. The tribe should succeed to all the prophecies, nowЧif prophecies, they truly wereЧwith two "gods" guiding and directing them.

"And our Holy City, reborn shall be," he sang softly "Ehlai, washed by Wind, beside the Sun-lit sea."

"Of course," he muttered to himself as he tightened the new string, "Ehlai, if it was ever aught than a paradisical dream, lies far and far from this place; beyond another range of mountains, higher mountains, with snow forever on them. God Milo has convinced all the others that the key word in the 'Bard Song of Prophecy' is wrong, became twisted over the years, but Blind Hari knows better. The march toward the true Ehlai should be the path of the setting, not the rising Sun; but, why should old Hari say aught to gainsay God Milo, for he means the clans no ill. To him, we allЧeven I, who have seen the coming and going of seven score and seven winters-Чare yet but his children and he loves us well. He, it was, who succored our ancestors, gave to them the knowledge and skills necessary to sustain life, taught them partnership with cat and horse and instilled in them, and those who came after, respect and regard for Brotherhood and Honor and Law.

"And, compared to him . . . and now, her, we are as children. One direction is as another to the tribe, so long as there be rich graze for the herds and good hunting for the cats and fighting and loot for the kindred; while He has a purpose which none could fault, he seeks his own kind, fellow Gods, of his sacred clan. This is meet, even Gods should sometimes visit with their own, share the cooking fire of their dear kindred."

Suddenly, a great and agonizing loneliness pervaded the being of the old, old man. He closed his unseeing eyes and sat back, reliving the happy and joyous days of his youth and young manhoodЧbefore he lost his sight, found compensatory "powers," and became a bardЧriding and hunting and wenching with his clan-brothers.

"It is said," he mused to himself, "that Clan Kruguh came east, along with Clan Buhkuh and a part of the Cat Clan ... perhaps, somewhere on this land . . . ?"

A thought was beamed into his mind. "Not so, wise Cat-brother. All that this land holds of them is their scattered bones."

"I know not your mind," Hari mindspoke in reply. "How is my Brother-cat called?"

"You may call me Old-Cat, Cat-brother. For one of my race, I am nearly as old as are you for yours, and it is meet that the name of my primeЧgiven and borne in honorЧshould be as dead as my kindred and yours, for he of that name fled in dishonor, when the treacherous Blackhaks tricked and slew or enslaved all with whom he crossed the mountains. The pelts of his brothers and sisters, of his females and his kittens, adorn the stone tents of the Blackhairs and, if he had been of honor, his would hang among them."

"Not so, Old-Cat," retorted the bard. "Needless death is not necessarily honorable death. If one does not live, how will the dead be avenged, to whom will their killers pay the blood-price?"

"But, he who fled was Cat Chief, wise Cat-brother. He should have died with his clan."

Old Hari sighed. "To allow pursuit of honor to lead one to a certain death, which does not benefit the clan, is the act of a fool, Old-Cat. The clan which has a fool as chief has no chief at all!"

The cat licked at the snow white fur of his muzzle. "Wise Cat-brother, you mindspeak words of comfort to one long years in need of such. If I can but live a bit longer, long enough to wreck vengeance upon the murderers of my kin and yours...."

Hari placed his harp on the floor at his feet and extended a hand. "Come, Old-Cat, let our bodies touch and mayhap I can tell something of what is to come for you."

The cat advanced toward the proffered hand, awed reverence in his mind. "You are older than I'd thought. I know you now, Kin of Power. You are Blind Hari of Kruguh. I'd thought you long years in the Home of Wind, yet still you live. Are you then an Undying God?"