"Linda Evans - Time Scout 2 - Wages of Sin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

bumps of mold growing up from the flat, bleak ground.
They galloped into the middle of what even Skeeter could tell was some kind
of formal processional, scattering women and children as they smashed into the
festive parade. Screams rose from every side. Yesukai leaned down from his
saddle and snatched a terror-stricken young girl from her own pony, threw her
across his pommel and shouted something. The men of the camp were running
toward them, bows drawn. Arrows whizzed from Yesukai's mounted warriors. Men
went down, screaming and clutching at throats, chests, perforated bellies.
Deep in shock, Skeeter rode the long way back to the tall mountain where he'd
fallen through the hole in the air, wondering every galloping step of the way
what was to become of him, never mind the poor girl, who had finally quit
screaming and struggling and had settled into murderous glares belied by
occasional whimpers of terror.
It was only much later that Skeeter learned of Yesukai's instructions to
his warriors. "If the bogda brings us success, I command that he be raised in
our tents as a gift from the gods, to become Yakka as best he can or die as
any man would of cold, starvation, or battle. If he brings the raid bad luck
and I fail to steal my bride from that flat-faced fool she is to marry, then
he is no true bogda. We will leave his cut-up body for the vultures."
There was no compassion in Yesukai for any living thing outside his
immediate clan. He couldn't afford it. No Mongol could. Keeping the Yakka
clan's grazing lands, herds, and yurts safe from the raids of neighbors was a
full-time job which left no room in his heart for anything but cold
practicality.
Skeeter had come to live in terror of him-and to love him in a way he could
never explain. Skeeter was used to having to fend for himself, so learning to
fight for scraps of food like the other boys after the adults had finished
eating from the communal stew pot wasn't as great a shock as it might have
been. But Skeeter's father would never have troubled himself to say things
like, "A Yakka Mongol does not steal from a Yakka Mongol. I rule forty-
thousand yurts. We are a small tribe, weak in the sight of our neighbors, so
we do not steal from the tents of our own. But the best in life, bogda, is to
steal from one's enemy's and make what was his your own-and to leave his yurts
burning in the night while his women scream. Never forget that, bogda. The
property of the clan is sacred. The property of the enemy is honorable gain to
be taken in battle."
Boys, Skeeter learned, stole from one another anyway, sometimes starting
blood feuds that Yesukai either ended cruelly or-on occasion-allowed to end in
their own fashion, if he thought the wiser course would be to drive home a
harsh lesson. Hardship Skeeter could endure. Fights with boys twice his age
(although often half his size), nursing broken bones that healed slowly
through the bitter, dust-filled storms every winter, learning to ride like the
other boys his age, first on the backs of sheep they were set to guard, then
later on yaks and even horses, these Skeeter could endure. He even learned to
pay back those boys who stole from him, stealing whatever his enemies
treasured most and planting the items adroitly amongst the belongings of his
victim's most bitter enemies.
If Yesukai guessed at his little bogda's game, he never spoke of it and
Skeeter was never reprimanded. He desperately missed nearly everything about
the uptime home he'd lost. He missed television, radio, portable CD players,