"Sara Douglass - The Axis Trilogy 1 - BattleAxe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

would feed it. In time they would learn to love it. And then, years into a future
the wraiths could not yet discern, they would learn to worship it.
But now they were hungry and good food was cooling to one side. Appealing
as it was, the baby was dumped unceremoniously in the snow, howling its rage,
as the wraiths fed on its dead mother.
Six weeks later . . .
Separated by the length of the Alps and still more by race and circumstance,
another woman struggled through the snowdrifts of the lower reaches of the
western Icescarp Alps.
She fell badly over a rock hidden by the snow and tore the last fingernail
from her once soft, white hands as she scrabbled for purchase. She huddled
against a frozen rock and sucked her finger, moaning in frustration and almost
crying through cold and sad-heartedness. For a day and a night she had battled
to keep alive, ever since they had dumped her here in this barren landscape.
These mountains could kill even the fittest man, and she was seriously weakened
by the terrible birth of her son two days before.
And despite all her travail and prayers and tears and curses he had died
during that birth, born so still and blue that the midwives had huddled him away,
not letting her hold him or weep over him.
And as the midwives fled the birthing chamber, the two men had come in,
their eyes cold and derisive, their mouths twisting with scorn. They had dragged
her weeping and bleeding from the room, dragged her from her life of comfort
and deference, dumped her into a splintered old cart and drove her throughout
the day to this spot at the base of the Icescarp Alps. They had said not a word
the entire way.
Finally they had unceremoniously tipped her out. No doubt they wished her
dead, but neither had dared stain their hands with her blood. Better this way,
where she could endure a slow death on the dreaded mountains, prey to the
Forbidden Ones which crouched among the rocks, prey to the cold and the ice,
and with time to contemplate the shame of her illegitimate child . . . her dead
illegitimate child.
But she was determined not to die. There was one chance and one chance
only. She would have to climb high into the Alps. Barely out of girlhood arid clad
only in tatters, she willed herself to succeed.
Her feet had gone to ice the first few hours and she now could no longer
feel them. Her toes were black. Her fingernails, torn from her hands, had left
gaping holes at the ends of her fingers that had iced over. Now they were
turning black too. Her lips were so dry and frozen they had drawn back from her
teeth and solidified into a ghastly rictus.
She huddled against the rock. Although she had started the climb in hope
and determination, even she, her natural stubbornness notwithstanding, realised
her situation was precarious. She had stopped shivering hours ago. A bad sign.
The creature had been watching the woman curiously for some hours now.
It was far up the slopes of the mountain, peering down from its heights through
eyes that could see a mouse burp at five leagues. Only the fact that she was
below his favourite day roost made the creature stir, fluff out its feathers in the
icy air, then spread its wings and launch itself abruptly into the swirling wind,
angered by the intrusion. It would rather have spent the day preening itself in
what weak sun there was. It was a vain creature.
She saw it circling far above her. She squinted into the sun, grey specks of