"Raymond E. Feist - Conclave of Shadows 3 - Exile's Return" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

mid-afternoon to venture deeper into the gully, to see where it led, and to find another
place to dig for water.
Near sundown he had found the tree. He had no name for it, but it bore a tough-
skinned fruit. He had cut several down and discovered that once the skin was cut with
a blade, the meat was edible. It was also pulpy and tough, and the flavor was nothing
to delight a hedonist, but he was desperate. He ate a few bites, despite being
consumed by hunger, and waited.
It seemed they weren't poisonous. He ate several before cramps gripped him.
They might not be poisonous, but they were tough on the stomach. Or perhaps three
days without food had caused his stomach to act more tenderly.
Kaspar had always possessed a healthy appetite and had never known hunger
more pressing than skipping a midday meal because of a hunt or sailing off the coast.
Others in his father's household had complained bitterly when he pressed on, and he
laughed silently to imagine how they would react in his current circumstances. The
laugh died as he realized they would all likely be dead by now.
The bird came nearer.
 Kaspar had placed seeds in a line leading to a snare he had fashioned from the
materials at hand. Painfully he had woven tough fibers pulled from the bulb of a
strange-looking cactus; it was a trick shown him by his Keshian guide. He had ripped
off the end of the bud and yanked hard, producing a sharp tip attached to a long fiber.
'Nature's needle and thread,' the guide had said. He had struggled, but in the end he
had produced a line twice the length of his arm. His hands and arms were covered in
cuts and puncture wounds, testament to his determination to fashion a snare from the
thorn-covered branches of the local plants.
It took every ounce of will for Kaspar to remain silent and motionless as the bird
approached his snare. He had already started a small fire, which was now banked and
waiting to be fanned back into flame, and his mouth positively watered in anticipation
of roast fowl.
The bird ignored him as it worried at the seed, attempting to break though the
tough outer husk and get to the softer inner kernel. As Kaspar watched the bird
finished the tiny morsel and moved to the next seed. For an instant, Kaspar hesitated
as a pang of doubt seized him. He felt an almost overwhelming fear that somehow the
bird would escape and he would slowly starve to death in this isolated place.
Genuine doubt almost paralyzed him to the point of losing the bird. The fowl
tossed the seed in the air and it landed just far enough from where Kaspar had placed
his snare that he felt sure it would escape. However, when he yanked his line the trap
fell exactly where he had judged it would land.
The bird fluttered and squawked as it tried to escape the thorny cage. Kaspar
endured punctures from the iron-like points as he lifted the small cage to reach under
and seize the bird.
He quickly wrung its neck and even before he had returned to the fire he was
plucking its feathers. Using the tip of his sword to gut the bird proved a messy
prospect. He wished now he had kept the dagger instead of using it to warn off the
nomad chieftain.
Finally the bird was dressed and spitted and he was turning it over a fire. Kaspar
could hardly contain himself waiting for the bird to cook. As the minutes dragged on,
the cramps in his stomach were from anticipation more than anything else.
Throughout his life Kaspar had developed a strong self-discipline, but not eating
undercooked bird was the toughest test he could remember. But he knew the dangers
of eating undercooked fowl. One bout of food poisoning as a young man left an