"Avram Davidson - The Kar-chee Reign" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Avram)

come down. "Beating" was here not the most exact wordтАФthe younger
boys went up to the top of the cliff-face by another and roundabout way
and pelted any deer they might find below with stones and sticks. It was
doubtless not sporting, but this was a conception unknown to them. They
killed what they needed, and no more, and it made sense to kill as quickly
and easily as possible.
Lors and Duro levered down their goat-foot crossbows and loaded them
with a bolt each, Tom-small nocked an arrow into his short straight bow,
and the three of them picked their hiding places among the rocks and
hunkered down.
They could, if need be, maintain the position for hours. But as it turned
out, they had to maintain it for something much less.
From above and ahead, faint but clear, after perhaps a quarter of an
hour, the three heard a series of whistles. Duro got up, swearing. Lors
shrugged. To Tom-small, who looked at them inquiringly, he said, "No
game at the spring. Well, we'll have to go all the way up there to see if
there's anything along the pathтАж and then come all the way down again, if
there is or there isn't."
"Oh, Devil!" said Duro, again.
And there was nothing along the path.
There was nothing along the usual beats, eitherтАФno actual game, that
is. There was spoor and trace, to be sure, and these signs made them all
look at each other with faces wrinkled in uncertainty.
"Upland," Tom-small said. "Everything seems to have gone uplandтАж Do
you know why?"
The brothers didn't. "I don't know who'd be beating up from downland
hereabouts," Lors said. "I don't smell any fire, either." Automatically, at
this suggestion, they all sniffed the air. As though to accommodate them
at just that moment the wind shifted.
"What is that?" Duro asked, scowling.
No one knew. It was musty and pungent and utterly strange. It might be
connected with the curious absence of game; it might not. "Let's go see
what it is," said Duro.
Lors shook his head. "Popa didn't send us out for anything but to get
meat, and the meat's all gone upland, it seems, so we just have to go
upland after it. When we get back we can tell him about it, and he'll know
what to do."
"By the time we get back with anythingтАФif we find anythingтАФthey'll all
be hungry, anyway," his brother pointed out. He looked windward, made
as though to reload his crossbow.
"The longer we wait and gibble-gabble, the hungrier they'll be. Up," said
the elder. And turned and started. Tom-small and the younger boys
followed at once. So, after a moment, did Duro. They went upland, all of
them, but they came within shot of no game. Once they stopped stock-still
at the sight of three deer outlined upon the top of a ridge, heads all up. For
a moment nothing moved, nothing was heard. Then, far off and below, it
cameтАж deep and distinctive and strange, and it sounded againтАФthe deer
darted off and were goneтАФand it seemed to have ended upon a higher, a
questioning note.
"It's no horn," guest Tom-small said, low-voiced, evidently answering