"John Dalmas - Yngling 2 - Homecoming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

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Homecoming

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II
Something was making the cattle restless. Their normal foraging movements had
stopped, their heads raised to stare southward. It had started a moment earlier with
some old cows at the south edge of the herd, and spread. He stood in his stirrups, old
calves sinewy, strong bare toes supporting his wiry weight, to scan the irregular sea of
grass in that direction. Perhaps wolves were moving down the draw from the forested
ridge a kilometer away, hoping to take a new calf from the fringe of the herd.

Casually he took his short bow from its boot and strung it. There was no cause for
concern. Last yearтАЩs grass had been broken and flattened by winter snows, and the new
grass was still young spears not long enough to conceal a hare. They could not move out
of the draw without becoming targets for himself and the others.

It did not occur to him to think beyond wolves. But it was men who rode out of the pines,
and he sat back, watching them. Horse barbarians, he thought, predatory and wild, but
constrained by their fealty to the Master from attacking his herds or his herdsmen.
Horse barbarians. They were of different tribes and tongues, from as near as the
Southern Desert and as far as the Great Eastern Mountains, wherever those might be.
But he hadnтАЩt seen any like these before. His keen eyes took in details. These were large
men, some with yellow hair, and they carried no lances.

They separated, moving casually as if to encircle or half encircle the herd, and he started
toward them to warn them away. They began to shout, to drive the cattle, and he called
angrily at them, shaking his bow. One of the nearest raised his own bow and the
herdsman stared for a shocked moment before slumping to the ground, his callused toes
losing their grip on the stirrups.

The other herdsmen fled, and the intruders made no effort to stop them. They simply
drove the herd across the arm of prairie toward the mountains rising to the northwest.



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