"David Drake - Men Like Us (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

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MEN LIKE US
By David Drake
There was a toad crucified against them at the head of the pass. Decades of cooking in the blue haze
from the east had left it withered but incorruptible. It remained, even now that the haze was only a
memory. The three travelers squatted down before the talisman and stared back at it.
"The village can't be far from here," Smith said at last. "I'll go down tomorrow."
Ssu-ma shrugged and argued, "Why waste time? We can all go down together."
"Time we've got," said Kozinski, playing absently with his ribs as he eyed the toad. "A lot of the stories
we've been told come from ignorance, from fear. There may be no more truth to this one than to many of
the others. We have a duty, but we have a duty as well not to disrupt needlessly. We'll wait for you and
watch."
Smith chuckled wryly. "What sort of men would there be in the world," he said, "if it weren't for men like
us?"
All three of them laughed, but no one bothered to finish
their old joke.
The trail was steep and narrow. The stream was now bubbling ten meters below, but in springtime it
would fill its sharp gorge with a torrent as cold as the snows that spawned it. Coming down the valley,
Smith had a good view of Moseby when he had eased around the last facet of rock above the town. It
sprawled in the angle of the creek and the river into which the creek plunged. In a niche across the creek
from the houses was a broad stone building, lighted by slit windows at second-story level. Its only
entrance was an armored door. The building could have been a prison or a fortress were it not for the
power lines running from it, mostly to the smelter at the riverside. A plume of vapor overhung its slate
roof.
One of the pair of guards at the door of the power plant was morosely surveying the opposite side of the
gorge for want of anything better to do. He was the first to notice Smith. His jaw dropped. The traveler
waved to him. The guard blurted something to his companion and threw a switch beside the door.
What happened then frightened Smith as he thought nothing in the world could frighten him again An air
raid siren on the roof of the power plant sounded, rising into a wail that shook echoes from the gorge.
Men and women darted into the streets, some of them armed, but Smith did not see the people, these
people, and he did not fear anything they could do to him.
Then the traveler's mind was back in the present, a smile on his face and nothing in his hands but an oak
staff worn by the miles of earth and rock it had butted against. He continued down into the village, past
the fences and latrines of the nearest of the houses. Men with crossbows met him there, but they did not
touch him, only motioned the traveler onward. The rest of the townsfolk gathered in
an open area in the center of the town. It separated the detached houses on the east side from the row of
flimsier structures built along the river. The latter obviously served as barracks, taverns, and brothels for
bargees and smelter workers. The row buildings had no windows facing east, and even their latrines must
have been dug on the riverside. A few people joined the crowd from them and from the smelter itself, but
only a few.
"That's close enough," said the foremost of those awaiting the traveler. The local was a big man with a