"David Drake - Old Nathan (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

And that mattered not a whit to Old Nathan now.

The cunning man stepped down into the shallow creek and laid a hand on the shoulder of Spanish King.
The black bull was shuddering as his muscles strove to throw off fatigue poisons accumulated in the
nearly motionless struggle, and the air reeked with hormones saturating the sweat which foamed across
his torso as far back as the last ribs. King's deep exhalations roiled the surface of the creek in
counterpoint with his slobbering gulps of water.

"Ye've whipped 'im, boy," said Old Nathan earnestly, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. "Hain't
another bull on this earth could've done what you did. Now, let's ussens go off and leave him t' his
business. Hit ain't no affair of ours if some triflin' daddy's boy lays in a stand uv corn here er no."

"Ain't finished, old man," said the bull as he paused in drinking and got his breath enough under control
that he could rumble out the words. "You know thet." The creek curled around his fetlocks, and his black
hide steamed with sweat.

"What call dowe hev t' stay here, damn ye?" the cunning man demanded.

The piebald bull pranced out of the stream, his tail lifted so that the center of it curved higher than his
rump though the brush of long black hairs still hung down. Mud his hooves had stirred upstream began to
drift past Old Nathan's boots.

"Comeaway, " the man cried.

"And give him best?" murmured Spanish King. "Don't reckon so." He poised himself. "Watch yerself, old
man," he warned, and he launched himself from the creek to charge his rival.

"Blood and dust!" thundered the aurochs as he pounded with his head high toward the black bull.

"King, he's hookтАФ"cried Old Nathan, but the warning would have been too late even if it could have
been heard over the competing bellows of the bulls.

The aurochs ducked so low that he seemed almost to have stumbled, his lower jaw sweeping dust from
the clay. Neither the feint nor the piebald bull's attempt to hook him low took Spanish King by surprise,
but his reflexes played him false for all that.

King twisted to block the thrust of a long-horned bull like himself, and the aurochs' right horn stabbed
over King's guard and deep into his throat.

The black bull grunted in shock, and his legs stiffened as if the blow had been to the cortex of his brain.
The aurochs rumbled in triumph and backed a step to give his rival time to die. Beads of arterial blood
stained the right horn like rubies in black onyx.

Spanish King strode forward as the piebald bull stepped away. Their horns met and locked again with
the sound of lightning striking a tall tree, and the aurochs gave back a further pace with surprise that the
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