"Glory Road" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

"Water polo I nave never seen," Star said doubtfully.
"There won't be any referee. All it means this time is that all three of us jump him, in the water, and shove his head under and keep it there--and help each other to keep him from shoving our heads under. Big as he is, unless he can outswim us he'll be at a terrible disadvantage. We go on doing this until he is limp and stays limp, never let him get a breath. Then, to make sure, well weigh him down with stones--it won't matter whether he's really dead or not. Any questions?"
Rufo grinned like a gargoyle. "This is going to be fun!"
Both those pessimists seemed to think that it would work, so we got started. Rufo shouted an allegation about Igli's personal habits that even Olympia Press would censor, then dared Igli to race him, offering an obscene improbability as a wager.
It took Igli a lumbering long time to get that carcass moving but when he did get rolling, he was faster than Rufo and left a wake of panicked animals and birds behind him. I'm pretty fast but I was hard pushed to hold position on the giant, flanking and a few paces back, and I hoped that Star would not loose the wards if it appeared that Igli might catch Rufo on dry land.
However, Star did loose the wards just as Rufo cut away from the barrier, and Rufo reached the bank and made a perfect racing dive without slowing down, all to plan.
But nothing else was.
I think Igli was too stupid to twig at once that the barrier was down. He kept on a few paces after Rufo had gone left oblique, then did cut left rather sharply. But he had lost speed and he didn't have any trouble stopping on dry land.
I hit him a diving tackle, illegal and low, and down he went--but not over into the water. And suddenly I had a double armful of struggling and very smelly Golem.
But I had a wildcat helping me at once, and quickly thereafter Rufo, dripping wet, added his vote.
But it was a stalemate and one that we were bound to lose in time. Igli outweighed all of us put together and seemed to be nothing but muscle and stink and nails and teeth. We were suffering bruises, contusions, and flesh wounds--and we weren't doing Igli any damage, Oh, he screamed like a TV grunt & groaner every time one of us twisted an ear or bent back a finger, but we weren't really hurting him and he was decidedly hurting us. There wasn't a chance of dragging that hulk into the water.
I had started with my arms around his knees and I stayed that way, of necessity, as long as I could, while Star tried to weigh down one of his arms and Rufo the other. But the situation was fluid; Igli thrashed like a rattler with its back broken and was forever getting one limb or another free and trying to gouge and bite. It got us into odd positions and I found myself hanging onto one callused foot, trying to twist it off, while I stared into his open mouth, wide as a bear trap and less appetizing. His teeth needed cleaning.
So I shoved the toe of his foot into his mouth.
Igli screamed, so I kept on shoving, and pretty soon he didn't have room to scream. I kept on pushing.
When he had swallowed his own left leg up to the knee, be managed to wrench his right arm loose from Star and grabbed at his disappearing leg--and I grabbed his wrist. "Help me!" I yelped to Star. "Push!"
She got the idea and shoved with me. That arm went into his mouth to the elbow and the leg went farther in, quite a bit of the thigh. By, then Rufo was working with us and forced Igli's left hand in past his cheek and into the jaws. Igli wasn't struggling so hard by then, short on air probably, so getting the toe of his right foot started into his mouth simply required determination, with Rufo hauling back on his hairy nostrils while I bore down with a Knee on his chin and Star pushed.
We kept on feeding him into his mouth, gaining an inch at a time and never letting up. He was still quivering and trying to get loose when we had him rolled up clear to his hips, and his rank armpits about to disappear.
It was like rolling a snowball in reverse; the more we pushed, the smaller he got and the more his mouth stretched--ugliest sight I ever have seen. Soon he was down to the size of a medicine ball . . . and then a soccer ball . . . then a baseball and I rolled him between my palms and kept pushing, hard.
--a golf ball, a marble, a pea . . . and finally there was nothing but some dirty grease on my hands.
Rufo took a deep breath. "I guess that'll teach him not to put his foot in his mouth with his betters. Who's ready for breakfast?"
"I want to wash my hands first," I said.
We all bathed, using plenty of soap, then Star took care of our wounds and had Rufo treat hers, under her instructions. Rufo is right; Star is the best medic. The stuff she used on us did not sting, the cuts closed up, the flexible dressings she put over them did not have to be changed, and fell off in time with no infection and no scars. Rufo had one very bad bite, about forty cents' worth of hamburger out of his left buttock, but when Star was through with him, he could sit down and it didn't seem to bother him.
Rufo fed us little golden pancakes and big German sausages, popping with fat, and gallons of good coffee. It was almost noon before Star loosed the wards again and we set out for our descent down the cliff.

Chapter 7

The descent beside the great waterfall into Nevia valley is a thousand feet and more than sheer; the cliff overhangs and you go down on a line, spinning slowly like a spider. I don't advise this; it is dizzy-making and I almost lost those wonderful pancakes.
The view is stupendous. You see the waterfall from the side, free-springing, not wetting the cliff, and falling so far that it shrouds itself in mist before it hits bottom. Then as you turn you face frowning cliff, then a long look out over a valley too lush and green and beautiful to be believed--marsh and forest at the foot of the cliff, cultivated fields in middle distance a few miles away, then far beyond and hazy at the base but sharp at the peaks a mighty wall of snow-covered mountains.
Star had sketched the valley for me. "First we fight our way through the marsh. After that it is easy going--we simply have to look sharp for blood kites. Because we come to a brick road, very nice."
"A yellow brick road?" I asked.
"Yes. That's the clay they have. Does it matter?"
"I guess not. Just don't make a hobbit of it. Then what?"
"After that we'll stop overnight with a family, the squire of the countryside there. Good people, you'll enjoy them."
"And then the going gets tough," Rufo added.
"Rufo, don't borrow trouble!" Star scolded. "You will please refrain from comments and allow Oscar to cope with his problems as he comes to them, rested, clear-eyed, and unworried. Do you know anyone else who could have handled Igli?"
"Well, since you put it that way . . . no."
"I do put it that way. We all sleep in comfort tonight. Isn't that enough? You'll enjoy it as much as anyone."
"So will you."
"When did I ever fail to enjoy anything? Hold your tongue. Now, Oscar, at the root of the cliff are the Horned Ghosts--no way to avoid them, they'll see us coming down. With luck we won't see any of the Cold Water Gang; they stay back in the mists. But if we have the bad luck to encounter both, we may have the good luck that they will fight each other and let us slip away. The path through the marsh is tricky; you had best study, this sketch until you know it. Solid footing is only where little yellow flowers grow no matter how solid and dry a piece looks. But, as you can see, even if you stay carefully on the safe bits, there are so many side trails and dead ends that we could wander all day and be trapped by darkness--and never get out."
So here I was, coming down first, because the Horned Ghosts would be waiting at the bottom. My privilege. Wasn't I a "Hero"? Hadn't I made Igli swallow himself?
But I wished that the Horned Ghosts really were ghosts. They were two-legged animals, omnivorous. They ate anything, including each other, and especially travelers. From the belly up they were described to me as much like the Minotaur; from there down they were splayfooted satyrs. Their upper limbs were short arms but without real hands--no thumbs.
But oh those horns! They had horns like Texas longhorns, but sticking up and forward.
However, there is one way of converting a Horned Ghost into a real ghost. It has a soft place on its skull, like a baby's soft spot, between those horns. Since the brute charges head down, attempting to impale you, this is the only vulnerable spot that can be reached. All it takes is to stand your ground, don't flinch, aim for that one little spot--and hit it.
So my task was simple. Go down first, kill as many as necessary to insure that Star would have a safe spot to land, then stand fast and protect her until Rufo was down. After that we were free to carve our way through the marsh to safety. If the Cold Water Gang didn't join the party--
I tried to ease my position in the sling I was riding--my left leg had gone to sleep--and looked down. A hundred feet below the reception committee had gathered.
It looked like an asparagus patch. Of bayonets.
I signaled to stop lowering. Far above me, Rufo checked the line; I hung there, swaying, and tried to think. If I had them lower me straight into that mob, I might stick one or two before I myself was impaled. Or maybe none--The only certainty was that I would be dead long before my friends could join me.
On the other hand, besides that soft spot between the horns, each of these geeks had a soft underbelly, just made for arrows. If Rufo would lower me a bit-
I signaled to him. I started slowly down, a bit jerkily, and he almost missed my signal to stop again. I had to pull up my feet; some of those babies were a-snorting and a-ramping around and shoving each other for a chance to gore me. One Nijinsky among them did manage to scrape the sole of my left buskin, giving me goose flesh clear to my chin.
Under that strong inducement I pulled myself hand over hand up the line far enough to let me get my feet into the sling instead of my fanny. I stood in it hanging onto the line and standing on one foot and then on the other to work pins and needles out. Then I unslung my bow and strung it. This feat would have been worthy of a trained acrobat--but have you ever tried to bend a bow and let fly while standing in a bight at one end of a thousand-foot line and clinging to the line with one hand?