"Harrison, Harry - Eden 2 - Winter In Eden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

In a red haze of anger and hatred Kerrick raised his hшsotsan with shaking hands, aimed it at Herilak who stood unmoving and unafraid, his spear butt on the ground. Herilak shook his head and spoke.

"Killing me will not bring her back to life. And Tanu does not kill Tanu. There are other women."

Other women. These words disarmed Kerrick and he lowered his weapon. There were no other women for him, just Armun. And she was dead. And Herilak was not to blame. It was his fault, his alone. If he had returned to the sammads she would be alive now. It was over. There was nothing else to say about it.

"You want to talk about the death-sticks," Kerrick said, all feeling gone from his voice. "What of them?"

"They are dead, all of them. It was the cold of winter. Even though we tried to keep them warm many died the first winter, the rest were dead before this spring. Now we must go and hunt in the land of the murgu for there is no game to the north. We need more of the death-sticks. The sammads need them to live. You have more here. Will you share them?"

"I have many here, young ones growing here. Where are the sammads?"

"North, on the beach with the mastodons, waiting. Half of the hunters stay to guard them, the other half are here waiting in the forest. I came alone. It was my feeling you would kill me and I did not want them to see this happen."

"You were right in that. But I give you no death-sticks for hunting on the plains."

"You what?" Herilak shook his spear in anger. "You will refuse me, refuse the sammads? You could have had my life if you wished it. I gave you that-for the sammads-and now you refuse me?"

Without realizing it he half-raised the spear and Kerrick pointed to it, smiling coldly.

"Tanu does not kill Tanu-yet you raise your spear." He waited until Herilak had conquered his anger, lowered his spear, before he spoke again. "I said there would be no death-sticks for hunting in the plains. There is danger in this city and hunters are needed to defend it. The Sasku are here. As they once aided the Tanu I now ask you to aid them in turn. Stay and help them here. There are death-sticks for all."

"That is not for me to decide. There are other sammadars, and all in the sammads as well."

"Bring them here. A decision must be made."

Herilak scowled darkly with anger, yet had no choice. In the end he turned on his heel and stamped away, brushing past Sanone without even a sideward glance.

"There is trouble?" Sanone asked.

Trouble? Armun dead. Kerrick still could not accept this reality. It took an effort to speak to Sanone.

"The sammadars of the Tanu are coming here. I have told them if they want death-sticks they must stay in the city. They must bring the sammads here. We will band together to defend each other-there is no other way."

Nor was there. The sammadars talked, long and angrily, sucked smoke from the pipe and passed it on. They would decide to stay; they had no other choice. Kerrick did not take part in the discussion, ignored the angry looks from them when Herilak told of his ultimatum. How they felt was of no importance to him. Tanu and Sasku would stay here, would leave only if they were driven out. Through the haze of his troubled and angry thoughts he became aware that a hunter stood before him. It took him a moment to realize that it was Ortnar. When he saw this he waved the hunter forward.

"Here, sit in the shade beside me and tell me about Armun."

"You have spoken of this to Herilak already?"

"He told me that he ordered her to stay in the encampment, ordered that she not be helped. Yet you went to her aid. What happened?"

Ortnar was not happy. He spoke in a low whisper, his head lowered, his long hair hanging over his face. "This has pulled me in two directions at the same time, Kerrick, still pulls me. Herilak was my sammadar, we two are the only two still alive from the sammad killed by the murgu. That is a bond that is hard to break. When Herilak ordered none to help Armun I obeyed for it was a good decision. The path was long and dangerous. Yet when she asked me to help her I felt that she was right too. This pulled me apart and in my stupidity I gave her only half the help she needed. I should have given her all, gone with her, I know that now. I told her the path and gave her my death-stick. Half help."

"The others gave her none, Ortnar. You were her only friend."

"I told Herilak what I had done. He struck me down and I lay as one dead for two days, this I have been told. Here is where he struck in his anger." Ortnar's fingers crept to the crown of his head, fingered the scar there on his scalp. "I am no longer of his sammad; he has not spoken to me since."

He raised his face and interrupted before Kerrick could speak. "I had to tell you this first, so you would know what happened. Since then I have looked for traces of her, scouting as we came east. I could find nothing-no bones or skeletons of any of them. There were three of them who left together, Armun and your son, and a boy who she took with them. There should have been some trace. I asked all the hunters we met but none had seen them. But there was one, a hunter who traded stone knives for furs, who traded with the Paramutan to the north. He understands some of their talk. He was told that a woman with hair like ours was with them in their place, a woman with children."