"Herbert, Brian & Anderson, Kevin J. - Dune - House Corrino" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Slipping back into shadows, the raiders crept down shallow stairs to the grotto floor. Turok and the other Fremen, each man holding his confiscated weapons, took positions in different alcoves overlooking the grotto. Three raiders raced up the ramp that encircled the largest octagonal structure. At the top, the Fremen vanished from view, then reappeared and made rapid hand signals to Stilgar. Six guards had already been killed without making a sound, dispatched in deadly crysknife silence.

Now the time for stealth had ended. On the rock floor, a pair of commandos pointed their maula pistols at the surprised construction workers and ordered them up the stairs. The sunken-eyed laborers complied grudgingly, as if they didn't care which masters held them captive.

The Fremen searched connecting passageways and found an underground barracks with two dozen guards asleep among bottles of spice beer scattered on the floor. A strong odor of melange permeated the large common room.

Scoffing, the Fremen charged in, slashing with knives, kicking and punching, dealing out pain but no fatal wounds. The groggy Harkonnens were disarmed and herded to the central grotto.

His blood running hot, Stilgar scowled at the slouching, half-drunken men. One always hopes for an honorable enemy. But we have found none tonight. Even here, in the highly secure grotto, these men had been sampling the spice they were supposed to guardЧprobably without the Baron's knowledge.

"I want to torture them to death right now." Turok's eyes were dark

ider the ruddy glowglobe light. "Slowly. You saw what they did to their ptives."

Stilgar stopped him. "Save that for later. Instead, we shall put them to )rk."

Stilgar paced back and forth in front of the Harkonnen captives, "atching his dark beard. The stink of their fear-sweat began to overpower s melange odor. In a low, measured tone, he used a threat their leader :t'Kynes had suggested. "This spice stockpile is illegal, in explicit viola->n of Imperial orders. All melange on the premises will be confiscated d reported to Kaitain."

Liet, as the recently appointed Imperial Planetologist, had gone to itain to request a meeting with the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. It s a long journey across the galaxy to the Imperial Palace, and a simple ;ert dweller like Stilgar could scarcely comprehend such distances. "Says a Fremen?" sneered the half-drunk guard captain, a small man :h quivering jowls and a high forehead.

"Says the Emperor. We take possession of it in his name." Stilgar's in-o eyes bored into him. The red-faced captain didn't even have enough se to be frightened. Apparently, he had not heard what Fremen did to ir captives. He would find out soon enough.

"Get to work unloading the silos!" Turok barked, standing with the res-d workers. Those prisoners who weren't too exhausted to notice seemed jsed to see the Harkonnens jump. "We'll have our own 'thopters here n to pick up the spice."

the rising sun blistered the desert, Stilgar hovered on the tense edge of iety. The Harkonnen captives worked, hour after hour. This raid was ng a long time, yet they had so much to gain.

While Turok and his companions kept their weapons ready, surly konnen guards loaded packages of melange onto rattling conveyor s that led to openings on the cliff faces near 'thopter landing pads, side, the Fremen raiders hauled away enough treasure to ransom a Id.

What could the Baron possibly want with such wealth?

\t noon, precisely on schedule, Stilgar heard explosions from the vil-

of Bar Es Rashid at the base of the ridgeЧthe second Fremen razzia d attacking the Harkonnen guard post in a well-coordinated assault, Хour unmarked ornithopters circled the rock buttress gracefully, flap-

their mechanical wings until Stilgar's men guided them onto the ing slabs. Freed construction workers and the Fremen commandos ed the craft with the packaged, twice-stolen melange.

It was time for the operation to end.

Stilgar lined the Harkonnen guards along a sheer dropoff over the dusty huts of Bar Es Rashid far below. After hours of hard work and brewing fear, the jowly Harkonnen captain was fully sober now, his hair sweaty and eyes haunted. Standing before him, Stilgar studied the man with utter contempt.

Without a word, he drew his crysknife and slit the man up the middle, from pubic bone to sternum. The captain gasped in disbelief as his blood and entrails spilled out into the sun.

"Waste of moisture," Turok muttered beside him.

Several panicked Harkonnen prisoners tried to break away, but the Fremen fell upon them, hurling some over the cliff and stabbing others with sharp blades. Those who stood their ground were dispatched quickly and painlessly. The Fremen took much longer with the cowards.

The sunken-eyed construction workers were ordered to load bodies into the ornithopters, even the decaying corpses found in the passageways. Back at Red Wall Sietch, Stilgar's people would render the bodies in a deathstill, extracting every drop of water for the benefit of the tribe. Desecrated Hadith would be left empty again, a ghost sietch. A warning to the Baron.

One by one the loaded 'thopters rose like dark birds into the clear sky, while Stilgar's men trotted beneath the hot sun of afternoon, their mission