"Charles Coleman Finlay - A Democracy of Trolls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finley Charles Coleman)

wall. And then she smelled something else ....
Ragweed caught the same scent. "Hot diggety!" he shouted, making an
enthusiastic scooping motion with his hands before he ran down the hill.
"Fresh rotten meat!"
"Be careful!" she cried out. But Snapper was dead, the one that came out and
shouted at Mosswater and threw fire at him. At least she thought he was.
Holding her baby tight to her chest, she ran after Ragweed.
Ragweed stopped beside his dead brother, whose body sprawled face down in the
mud. Windy paused beside him and only then did her ears, which were better
than the average troll's, certainly much better than Ragweed's, detect the
high- pitched crying. When Ragweed turned to enter the cave she tripped him,
grabbing hold of his wrist so he couldn't break his fall. As he squawked,
hitting the ground, she rushed past him and inside.
The odors hit her first. The dead man -- Snapper -- and the dead woman. There
was something wrong with the woman's flesh. The smell of baby poop and urine
were also strong. Windy wrinkled her nose, swiveled her head around until she
saw the woman's corpse in the corner with the baby sitting there chewing on
her hair. Its eyes were shut, so tired it could barely sit up straight as it
cried.
Ragweed burst through the doorway behind her. "Ho there! Save some for me!"
He shoved her down and she kicked at him. He dodged her foot, hopping
ponderously over her outstretched leg. She dropped her dead daughter, dove
under Ragweed's groping arms, and slid across the dirt floor on her tender
breasts to grab the crying baby first. She curled around it protectively.
"Go ahead," Ragweed said, clearly disappointed. "It's not much. Won't fill
your belly up."
The baby continued to wail as it snuggled into Windy's arms. It rubbed its
face around her breast until its tiny mouth closed on the hard pebble of her
nipple. It didn't have much of a suck compared to her little girl, but then it
didn't need much of one either.
Ragweed picked up the woman's hand, stuck the fingers in his mouth, and chewed
on them. After a couple crunches, he spit them out and dropped her arm. "This
one's still warm, but she's been sick. Ought to let her rot for a couple days.
She'll taste better with bugs in her."
Windy wrinkled her flat nose again. The dead woman was this baby's mother; she
suddenly felt quite protective of her. "Go chew on Snapper then," she said.
"He's been dead longer."
"All gristle, no fat, like enough," muttered Ragweed, but he crossed the room.
Windy caressed the baby's head. It had such beautiful black hair, disguising
its misshapen skull and lack of a brow. Large -- gorgeously large -- eyes in
the painfully flat face stared right at her before they fluttered shut. The
ache in Windy's heart eased as quickly as the soreness in her breast.
"Ack!"
Ragweed jumped back so hard he fell on his bottom. He bounced up and retreated
across the room to Windy's side.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Go look for yourself! I'm not getting near it, not if it was a rotten mammut
on a hot summer night and I hadn't eaten anything in ten days."
Windy carefully cradled the suckling baby to her, took a step forward, and
then almost turned to stone. She didn't need to get any closer to see the