"Clayton Emery - Netheril 03 - Mortal Consequences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

despite a fur-lined hood.
The two were dressed for the weather, at least. Knucklebones wore a coat of brown sheepskin with
the fur turned inward and the sleeves cupped into mittens. Her legs were clad in blue wool leggings
tucked into boots made of reindeer hocks with the hair still on. At her back hung an ox hide pack
stuffed with jerked meat, oatmeal, and dried fruit. Her long elven blade hung on a thong to thump on
her small bosom, immediately handy. Beside it was strung a yellowed knucklebone, her namesake, the
hardest bone in any animal's body. With the hood up, all that showed were tufts of dark, unkempt hair,
a pale nose reddened by cold, and one good eye with a slight slant. The other bore an old knife wound
and a leather eye patch. Under her coat she wore woolen sweaters. Her fingers were deeply indented
from brass knuckledustersтАФhence part of her nameтАФbut she'd shucked them because the intense cold
made her clumsy.
In contrast, the tundra-born Sunbright wore little.
Red woolen leggings were tucked into iron-ringed moosehide boots stuffed with moss for
insulation. A long green shirt reached to his knees, but only a thick scarf and sheepskin mantle hung
from both shoulders, with a pack and Harvester's scabbard binding the mantle in place. He wore no
hat, despite that his temples were shaved and his white-blonde hair dragged back into a topknot and
horsetail. When the wind blew and Knucklebones's teeth chattered, Sunbright dragged the scarf up to
warm his ears. Just to look at his naked forearms and chin made Knucklebones shiver.
As did looking at the naked land. For the thousandth time, she turned a circle for a landmark.
Anything would do: a hill, a tree, a bush. But there was only snow-clad tundra, rising slightly in spots,
dipping here, but altogether too flat. Even the horizon was a blur, white snow meeting a white sky. She
had no idea of their direction, destination, or distance covered. Left alone, she'd go mad in hours, run
screaming in circles, crying like a child until she collapsed and died. Or was eaten.
"Are there many carpet beasts out here?" she asked. Even her voice was lost in the wastes, like the
squeaking of a baby rabbit. She barely reached Sunbright's breastbone. He could have slung her across
his shoulders like a lamb.
"Lurkers? No, not many. There's not much for them to eat. And when they do catch something,
reindeer mostly, though sometimes polar bears, they curl up and digest for months. My people kill
them when they can. I should have been more alert, should have seen its track."
"Track?" Knucklebones said. She couldn't even trust the ground she walked on. White on white, it
always looked too far or too near, so she blundered like a drunk.
"A lurker follows the vibrations of our feet. It swims under the snow, circles to get in front of you,
so you step on it. Lucky I threw you clear."
Lucky nothing, the thief knew. A lifetime on the tundra had saved him. Both of them, actually, for
she wouldn't last a night if Sunbright died.
"I should have seen the outline. And ant steam." To her puzzled look, he explained, "The ants are
cold-blooded, but storing food underground in their burrows makes heat and wisps of steam. Ants
often burrow near lurkers to pick up scraps of food, and they swarm over the beast's hide after lice.
They help each other survive. Everything up here works together."
And eats each other, Knucklebones thought. "How much farther to your tribe's hunting grounds?"
she asked, for perhaps the millionth time.
"Not far now," he answered patiently. "In fact, that's why I missed the lurker. I was excited about
getting home." He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sunset. The sun had only risen a hand
high in the southeast, and after only four hours sank toward the southwest. Nights were twenty hours
long, so they mostly traveled by starlight. Why they hadn't been eaten long agoтАФby lurkers or polar
bears or wolves or antsтАФKnucklebones couldn't fathom, but Sunbright's knowledge of the land and its
inhabitants had steered them around danger. Usually.
He pointed into the gathering dusk and said, "There. Where the land begins to fall again. A shallow
rill feeds a frozen stream that drops off a low cliff at a rookery into an arm of the Narrow Sea. My
people ice fish at this time of year, then pack the sledges and search for reindeer before spring. It won't