"Roland Green - Conan at the Demon's Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Roland)

or hostile.

Neither Conan nor the girls had provoked the jungle life. This said little about

the new presence, but what it did say made Conan slide from his watching place,

lifting a spear as he moved. A snake might have envied the smoothness and

silence of his movement; certainly it drew no response from the women.

Then something unheard even by the Cimmerian made all three of them whirl. A

moment later they had vanished up the path, with only the last flicker of the

last woman's skirt lingering briefly in Conan's vision.

If it had not been for the jugs and baskets in the clearing, he might have

thought the women had been a dream, risen from bad wine or an empty belly.

There was no wine in this jungle, although the native beer was robust enough to
satisfy a drinking man's thirst. But an empty belly was another matter. Conan's

stomach chose that moment to rumble, reminding him to check his snares on the

road homeward. In this steaming forest, snared animals died quickly, and more

quickly still became unfit to eat.

The thought of beer turned Conan's eyes back to the jugs. It could do no harm to

see what the women had left behind, and if it looked doubtful, there were plenty

of apes to test it for poison.

Conan's eyes roamed ceaselessly around the clearing as he crossed it to the

offerings. His long arms barely bent twigs or disturbed leaves as he reached in

for baskets and jugs. With one of each in either hand, he withdrew into the

shadows, walking backward as if each step was made on a carpet of spiderweb

stretched over a bottomless pit.

Invisible in the shadows again, he drew the bark stopper from the jug. Its

contents smelled like beer, surely enough, and felt like it on the back of his