"Philip Jose Farmer - WOT 3 - A Private Cosmos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Arrows shot past him; spears fell behind him. Kickaha did not bother returning the fire. He
crouched over the neck of his mare and shouted encouragement. Presently, as the Half-Horses drew
closer, and the arrows and spears came nearer, Kickaha saw the outpost on top of a low hill. It
was square and built of sharpened logs set Upright in the ground, and had overhanging blockhouses
on each side. The Tishquetmoac flag, green with a scarlet eagle swallowing a black snake, flew
from a pole in the middle of the post.
Kickaha saw a sentry stare at them for a few seconds and then lift the end of a long slim bugle to
his lips. Kickaha could not hear the alarm because the wind was against him and also because the
pound of hooves was too loud.
10
A PRIVATE COSMOS
Foam was pouring from the mare's mouth, but she raced on. Even so, the Half-Horses were drawing
closer, and the arrows and spears were flying dangerously near. A bola, its three stones forming a
triangle of death, almost struck him. And then, just as the gates to the fort opened and the
Tishquetmoac cavalry rode out, the mare stumbled. She tried to recover and succeeded. Kickaha knew
that the mishap was not caused by fatigue but by an arrow, which had plunged slantingly into her
rump, piercing at such a shallow angle that the head of the arrow was out in the air again. She
could not go much longer.
Another arrow plunged into the flesh just behind the saddle. She fell, and Kickaha threw himself
out and away as she went down and then over. He tried to land running but could not because of the
speed and rolled over and over. The shadow of the rolling horse passed over him; she crashed and
lay still. Kickaha was up and running toward the Tishquetmoac.
Behind him, a Half-Horse shouted in triumph, and Kickaha turned his head to see a feather-bonneted
chief, a spear held high, thundering in toward him. Kickaha snatched his throwing knife out,
whirled, took a stance, and, as the centaur began the cast of spear at him, threw his knife. He
jumped to one side immediately after the blade had left his hand. The spear passed over his
shoulder, near his neck. The Half-Horse, the knife sticking out of the bellows organ below his


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chest, cartwheeled past Kickaha, bones of equine legs and backbone of the human upright part
cracking with the impact. Then spears flew over Kickaha into the Half-Horses. One intercepted a
brave who thought that he had succeeded where the chief had
A PRIVATE COSMOS
11
failed. His spear was in his hand; he was trusting to no skill in casting but meant to drive it
through Kickaha with the weight of his five hundred pound
body.
The brave went down. Kickaha picked up the spear and hurled it into the horse-breast of the
nearest centaur. Then the cavalry, which outnumbered the Half-Horses, was past him, and there was
a melee. The Half-Horses were driven off at great cost to the human beings. Kickaha got onto a
horse which had lost its master to a Half-Horse tomahawk and galloped with the cavalry back to
the post.
The commander of the outpost said to Kickaha, "You always bring much trouble with you. Always."
Kickaha grinned and said, "Confess now. You were glad for the excitement. You've been bored to
death, right?"
The captain grinned back.
That evening, a Half-Horse, carrying a shaft of wood with a long white heron's feather at its tip,