"Barbara Hambly - Darwath 5 - Icefalcons Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

Summer of the Two White Mammoths. He'd been a minor chief then, and the Icefalcon had encountered
him twice more, once in a battle over summer hunting and once at a Moot.
If the Icefalcon hadn't left the Talking Stars People, they'd probably have fought again at another Moot.
He was a big man, some ten years older than the Icefalcon, with massive shoulders and tawny mustaches
braided down past his chin; the finger bones of a dozen foes were plaited into his hair.
He moved painfully now, and the Icefalcon saw the red blister of burned flesh through the black hole that
had been the back of his tunic.
When he saw the bodies had been disturbed, he looked around quickly, short-sword coming to his hand.
Conscious of the possibility of sound carrying, the Icefalcon whistled twice in the voice of the tanager, a
bird native to the oakwoods along the Ten Muddy Rivers, where the Empty Lakes People had originally
dwelled, though it was never seen in the high plains.
Loses His Way turned his head and the Icefalcon stepped from cover, crossed swiftly to the pile of
bodies at the foot of the cottonwood tree. "I am an enemy to the people who did this," he said, as soon
as he was close enough that their voices would not be heard. "I am alone."
Loses His Way raised his head, grief and shock darkening gentianblue eyes. "Icefalcon." He spoke the
name as it was spoken among the Empty Lakes People, K'shnia. He was like a man stunned by a blow,
barely taking in the presence of one who was his enemy and the enemy of his people.
"The air was full of creatures that tore at us," he said, and turned back to the dead. "When we rode
away, the horses threw us and ran back. Our dogs attacked us and savaged one another."
He touched the torn-out throat of a big gray dog, as if stroking the hair of a beloved child. "There was a
Wise One, a shaman, among them."
"The shaman is called Bektis," said the Icefalcon, framing the words carefully, haltingly, in the tongue of
the Empty Lakes People, which he had not had call to speak for years. "An evil man, who has carried
away the son of one who was good to me."
Loses His Way seemed scarcely to hear. His thick scarred stubby fingers passed across noses, lips,
brows. "Tethtagyn," he said, framing the name in the tongue of the Empty Lakes People; Wolfbone it
meant. "Shilhren ... Giarathis ..." Under long, curling red brows his eyes filled with grief.
"Twin Daughter," he whispered, and touched the face of a warrior whose hair was as red-gold as his.
"Twin Daughter."
Gently lifting the thick ropes of her hair-three braids, as was the fashion of his people-Loses His Way
took from around the young woman's neck a square spirit-pouch, decorated with porcupine quills and
patterns in ocher and black.
Worn under the clothing and out of sight, spirit-pouches were almost the only article decorated by any of
the peoples of the Real World. With his knife he cut off some of Twin Daughter's hair and put it into the
pouch. Then he sliced the palm of her left hand, and with his thumb daubed the congealing blood in the
open center of the pouch's worked design.
This he did for all the others in turn, saying their names as he did so: Wolfbone, Blue Jay, Shouts In
Anger, Raspberry Thicket Girl.
The Empty Lakes People, the Icefalcon remembered, did not revere their Ancestors, but rather the ki of
various rocks and trees in the country of the Ten Muddy Rivers. It was to them that these spiritpouches
must be dedicated and returned.
The Icefalcon privately regarded such customs as unnecessary and a little dangerous. Dead was dead,
and any member of the Talking Stars People would have been able to find his or her way home without
the assistance of a spirit-pouch. But he saw, in the big warrior's face, the need to do these things for his
own peace of mind.
One of the things that the Stars had told the Ancestors of his people was that every people had their
custom, and though all other people were wrong, it was not polite and frequently not safe to say so. At
least Loses His Way didn't feel it necessary to take fingers the way the Twisted Hills People did.
"You took all the food?" he asked then, and the Icefalcon nodded. "Then let's go away. I thought you
departed from the Real World for good," he added, as he and the Icefalcon followed the cliff wall