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

"Then we go north as well. It will be better than the hanalш, better than the beaches."

"There is cold, certain death to the north."

"There is warm, certain death on the beaches. And this way we will at least have seen something more than the hanalш before we die."


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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kerrick slept little that night; there was too much to think about. The sammads would come south, that had been decided; the hunters with their new hшsotsan were leaving in the morning to bring them back. With the hunters here the city was safe-or as safe as it might possibly ever be. Kerrick must turn his back on it now and think of his own sammad. He had left Armun behind with the sammads, and she had tried to join him. He would not even think of the possibility that she was dead; she was alive in the north, she had to be. He would find her, with Ortnar's aid they would seek out the Paramutan. They would find her, and the baby too-which left only a single thing to be concerned about. The two male Yilanш.

But why should he bother about them? They were nothing to him. But that was wrong. They were important. They had been imprisoned as he had been imprisoned. He had been tied by the neck-his fingers touched the iron ring about his neck at the thought-and they had been locked in the hanalш. It was the same thing. And they had a courage that he did not have, wanting to go bravely forth into a world they knew nothing about. Ready to follow him-because they had faith in him. They wanted to be part of his sammad. At this thought he laughed into the darkness. A strange sammad it would be! A sammadar who could rarely shoot an arrow straight, a hunter with a hole in his skull put there by his former sammadar, a woman, a baby-and two frightened murgu! A sammad indeed to strike fear into the hearts of others-if not into that of the sammadar himself.

What else could he do with the poor, helpless creatures? To leave them here would mean certain death; better to kill them himself than abandon them to that. And they would not return to the female Yilanш, which was very understandable. Yet if they went north with him they would surely die in the snow. Then what could he do? Take them out of here-then what?

An idea began to form and the more he thought about it the more possible it became. It was clear by morning and he slept on it.

Ortnar was waiting for him in the ambesed, with all of his weapons, his pack upon his back.

"We go later today," Kerrick said. "Leave your things here and come with me for I want to study our track north." They went to the still-intact model that the Yilanш had built, of the land on all sides of the city, and Kerrick looked at it closely.

"There is no need," Ortnar said. "I know the track well, have been over it many times."

"We will go a different way, at least at the beginning. Tell me, Ortnar, will you obey my orders, even if they do not suit you, or will you go to another sammad?"

"It may be that one day I will, since a hunter only obeys a sammadar who is right in what he says. But not now, not until we have gone north to find Armun and your son. For I feel I did wrong in not helping her when she first asked for aid. Because of that I will follow wherever you lead until we have done that thing."

"Those are hard words to say and I believe every one of them. Then you will go north with me-even though the two murgu males come with us?"

"They mean nothing to me. They will die in the snow in any case."

"Good. We will go after midday, when the hunters have gone, since I feel that the Tanu who leave now would enjoy using their new death-sticks on the males."

"I would enjoy doing that myself-were you not my sammadar."

"I can believe that. Now let us get a large supply of murgu meat from the store. If anyone asks you why we are taking the murgu north with us, it is because they will carry much meat for us so we can go faster and not stop to hunt. Tell them that we will kill the males when the meat is used up and we no longer need them."

"Now I understand, sammadar. It is a good plan and I will let you kill them yourself when the time comes."

They went to the hanalш then, and when they entered the two Yilanш eyed the newcomer with great fright.

"Act like males," Kerrick ordered. "We all travel together and you must get used to one another. This is Ortnar who follows me."

"He smells of death-smoke, horrible," Imehei said, shuddering delicately.

"And he thinks that your breath is foul from eating raw meat. Now be still while I fit these on you."

Ortnar had made leather packs to hold the meat and the two Yilanш were already wailing over the weight of their loads.