"CHARLES COLEMAN FINLEY - A democracy of trolls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finley Charles Coleman)

"Let them jump," said Ragweed. He'd been blunting his compassion on Maggot for years.
"We can't leave them." Windy's mother's deep voice overpowered the others. "Those girls are important to the band."
"Let's vote," said Stump.
"Fine! All those in favor of trying to rescue .... "
By the time they decided as a group to get something done, it'd be too late. Windy knew they'd have to act now but she didn't know what to do.
Maggot stirred on her shoulder. "What's wrong, Mom?"
"The girls are caught up there. If the sunlight reaches them, they'll fall asleep and drop. Even if they could hold on, the Sun would shrivel them up."
Rocky's mother ripped away huge chunks of friant rock in a frantic effort to carve footholds in the stone. Windy stood below her. "If the girls fall," she promised, "I'll catch them. I'm right here with you."
"Thank you," Bones said. Her feet slipped before she'd climbed twice her height.
Windy braced and caught her. The impact knocked her backward and she felt Maggot's weight slip from her shoulder and roll free. That was something they'd practiced. If she ever fell on him, he'd be crushed. She extricated herself from Bones and looked around to make sure that he was all right. When she didn't see him, she started turning over rocks.
"Maggot! Where are you?"
"He's up there."
Windy lifted her head and saw him halfway to the girls, spidering up the cliff. The skin wrapped around his neck gave him that hairy appearance. She jumped after him but Bones grabbed her. "Don't! You can't make it. You'll fall."
"But he doesn't know how to climb a wall that high!"
"Could fool me."
Windy held her breath. Maggot reached a tough spot and crossed horizontally until he found another handhold above him. He did everything just like she trained him, keeping three feet on the wall at all times. If anything happened to him ....
Along the trail to the cave, the other trolls finally voted to rescue the girls, with her mother leading the vote. But no one volunteered to go get them except Stump, and her mother thought Stump was too heavy and wanted someone else to make the climb. So now they were proceeding to another vote.
Windy shook her head and looked helplessly above her as Maggot overtook Blossom and began talking to her. He put his hand over her face and it was enough to break the Sun spell. She resumed her journey down, keeping her eyes on the ground the whole time.
Bones caught her off the wall and hugged her. "I was so scared!" Blossom said, tears pouring down her face, and then she squirmed away from them to go find her mother.
Higher up on the cliff, Rocky wouldn't budge. Maggot talked to her, Windy could see that much. He pointed down but Rocky refused to turn her head. He tried to cover her eyes and she shook her head free.
"She'll come down any moment now," Windy said soothingly, eyeing the slow advance of sunlight down the stone. Most of the trolls had headed off for the caverns without waiting to see if the other girl could be saved.
Bones chewed on her knuckles. "She's so timid, so much more timid. I don't know if she'll make it."
Windy's mother and Stump joined them at the base of the wall. Stump paused briefly to look up at the two motionless figures. "Looks like I still have two to rescue after all. I better hurry."
He headed up an older trail -- a dead end that Windy had forgotten -that would take him near their position. Windy watched him make his way up, wishing she'd thought to try that way herself, when she heard her friend gasp. She craned her neck around just in time to see Maggot slip. She screamed, but he pressed himself flat and found another foothold some ten feet farther down. "What happened?"
Bones covered her mouth. "She hit him."
"Of course she did," said Windy's mother. "The stupid boy threw that nasty skin over her face!"
Windy noticed her mother's choice of the word boy, but didn't comment. "Come down!" she cried up at her son. "Come down now!"
He ignored her and inched his way back up the rock. Stump was at the proper height on the trail, but he had a hundred foot horizontal climb to reach them. As he began his slow way across, Maggot started yanking on Rocky's feet.
"He's going to pull her down," gasped the girl's mother. "Stop! Stop! Wait for Stump!"
"I don't think that's what he's doing," whispered Windy, not quite sure herself what he did attempt. Although the skin covered her eyes, Rocky still wouldn't move.
"Hold on!" shouted Stump. "I'm almost there!"
But he wasn't close at all, having reached a spot where his toes could find no hold. Windy's mother tugged at her arm. The whole eastern sky glowed orange above the rim of the mountains. "Come!" she said, her voice as hard as granite. "We saved one girl and we must go down to the caverns. At once!"
"Wait," implored Windy.
The deep shadows of the canyon barely shaded them and she too felt the compelling need to run, but then Maggot's plan worked. He took Rocky's foot and put it in a lower toehold for her. She shifted her weight down to it and the spell was broken.
Slowly at first, then more quickly, they came climbing, sliding down the rock face. Stump called encouragement on his own speedy descent to the trail. The children were halfway down when a peregrine falcon, flying out of the Sun, dived at them curiously. With the day fear on her, Windy expected them to be dislodged by the plummeting bird but they didn't even notice it before it veered away.
"Come on, you're almost here," called Bones.
Rocky pulled the skin off her face, letting it flutter to the ground as she scampered down the last part of the slope and into her mother's arms. Bones swung her daughter up on her back, and hurried off with Windy's mother down the trail for the caves. Windy backed away, under the trees between the cliff and river where night still lingered. "Keep coming, Maggot! I'm right here for you!"
His little spider arms and legs trembled as he moved cautiously from hold to hold. Stump slowed in his dash down the trail. "Your son's a good troll," he said as he passed Windy.
"Thanks," she answered, looking up at the frail little figure clinging two dozen feet up the wall. He fell.
She lunged forward to catch him, cradling him in her arms and hugging him tight to still his shaking. The skin on his chest and under his arms and on his thighs was scraped raw. His fingers and his toes were bleeding, and his teeth chattered. She picked up his skin and covered him as she hurried toward the refuge of darkness.
"We saved them, didn't we?" he said proudly.
"Yes we did," she whispered, in the voice that was just for him.
"You're a good troll."
"I'm the best troll. Even Stump's not as good as me."
Her mother waited for them, frowning, just inside the cave. The gray old troll took one look at them and yawned. "I suppose it's too late today to call for any votes. Let's wait and see what sunset brings." Windy smacked her lips in agreement.
"But you let go of Ragweed. He mates with someone else."
Windy lifted her head, smacking her lips again, relieved. When her mother snorted and moved off into the deeper dark, she rocked Maggot in her arms. "I'm never going to let go of you again, you hear me?" she whispered.
He laughed at her and struggled to get loose.
THE ROAR OF the waterfall filled Windy's ears even though she was still too far away to see it. She paused in the bluish night, scratched her broad nose, and breathed in the faint, distant mist. The tang of spruce and hem lock needles mixed with dozens of smaller, nearer fragrances but she didn't smell the single scent she sought. Somewhere along the way she'd lost track of Maggot.
He'd been gone two whole nights. True, he was old enough to take care of himself now, but she fretted when he disappeared in the daylight. She wanted to stop him and knew that she couldn't.