"Philip Jose Farmer - WOT 2 - The Gates of Creation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

A glider passed above them on a path which would make it land ahead of them. Wolff got a glimpse
of the pilot. His red hair stood at least a foot high; the hair shone with some fixative oil. His
face was painted like a red Indian's with red and green circles, and black chevrons ran down his
neck and across his shoulders.

"The village is about a half-mile from here," Vala said. "On the extreme end of the island."

Wolff wondered why she was so concerned. What did a Lord care what happened to others? She
explained that If the Ilmawir made a successful landing, they would kill every human being on the
island. They would then plant some of their surplus people as a colony.

The island was not entirely flat. There were rises here and there, formed by the uneven growth of
the bladders. Wolff climbed to the top of one and looked over the fronds. The abuta was down to
fifty feet now, settling slowly and headed directly for the village. This was a group of about one
hundred beehive-shaped huts, built of fronds. A wall twenty feet high surrounded the village. It
looked as if it were constructed of stones, bamboo, fronds, and some dull gray poles that could be
the bones of colossal sea-creatures.

Men and women were stationed behind the walls and several groups were out in the open. They were
armed with spears and bows and arrows.

Beyond the village were docks built of bamboo. Along them and on the shore were boats of various
builds and sizes. The floater's bot-tom was a dense tangle of thick roots. There were, however,
open-ings in it, and from several of these large stones at the ends of cables of vegetable matter
were dropped. The stones were white, gypsum- like, and carved into flat discs. They trailed in the
sea as they were dragged along by the island, then struck the land. The cables of some caught
under the docks.

Other anchors fell and struck against the walls of the village. They were snagged in the tangle of
stuff forming the high-piled walls. They bumped along the grassless ground and slammed into the


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sides of the huts. These collapsed under the impact of the stones. At the same time, arrows were
shot, spears and rocks dropped, and flaming ob-jects cast from the hatches onto the people below.
Some islanders were struck down; huts started to burn. The flaming objects ex-ploded, and a dense
black smoke rose from them.

The defenders, however, were not helpless. From a large central building came men and women with
curious devices. They lit and released them, and they rose swiftly towards the underpart of the
floater. They caught in the tangle of roots and burned there. Then they exploded, and fire spread
among the roots.

The roof of a hut lifted up and fell over to one side, like the roof of a trapdoor spider. The
walls collapsed in orderly fashion out-wards, falling to the ground and forming a petal-figure. In
the center of the hut was a catapult, a giant bow with an arrow made from the horns of the
creature that had provided the booms on the noses of the gliders. To it were attached a number of