"Evans,.Linda.-.Sleipnir" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

the urge to glance over my shoulder. . . .



Months later, I was still glancing over my shoulder, in a cave that
Somebody was rearranging like a con man's shell game. I dropped
my hands against my thighs and deliberately uncurled my fingers.
Brooding on the past wasn't going to get me out of this fix. I had to
figure out what to do next, and I had to make the right decision on
the first try. Odin probably wouldn't give me the luxury of a second
chance.

It was pretty obvious that I couldn't go back, even if I'd wanted
toЧwhich I didn't. What wasn't at all obvious was why I couldn't go
back. If Odin had simply wanted to get rid of me, it would have
been far easier just to drop me quietly down that hole. Bjornssen
certainly wouldn't have wasted any time making tracks out of here
to live off my money if I'd died. Not only would I have been out of
his hair, there would have been no one left alive with any reason to
discover the truth behind the legends about Garm's Cave.

Odin was just toying with me. Or maybe he had something even
nastier planned. Ugh. Something worse than pulling the earth out
from under my feet? I glanced down at my pack and grimaced. If I
didn't move very, very carefully, I was a dead man.

Or worse . . .

I snorted and listened to the sound disappear, swallowed up by the
blackness. Since "back" was out of the question, my two main
options appeared to be "forward" and "down"Чdown the hole after
Bjornssen, that is.

Right. Odin would love that.

Some options.

Maybe, in the final analysis, that was why Odin had killed
Bjornssen. This way he knew exactly where I was, stumbling
around blind in his territory, not mine. The idea that a god might
consider me too dangerous to leave running around loose didn't
exactly comfort me; but it did kind of stroke the ego. . . .

Frankly, I could do without that kind of ego-boo.

I considered my supplies. I had food (some), water (less), carbide
(not nearly enough), and cyalume chemical lightsticks (mostly half-
hour shorties). Bjornssen had been packing most of the carbide
and a good portion of our foodЧwhich did me no good at allЧso I
gritted my teeth and stopped wasting time wishing I had his gear. I