"Douglas Hill - Last Legionary 0 - Young Legionary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hill Douglas)

shreds - but it still reached almost twice round his hips, he found, as he rewrapped it. Not that he was
troubled by nakedness: his people had no such pruderies. But he knew that his friends would tease him
with nonstop merriment if he went back without the only piece of civilization he had taken with him.

Once again he began the climb back down to the plateau, moving with some urgency now. He was going
to need water soon, to drink and to wash his wound. Eventually he would need food, though he could
fast for a day or two if he had to. But above all, he needed to get going. He had only two days to cover
the distance to his goal - and he had not even left the starting place yet.



From the edge of the cliff on one side of the plateau, he could see a sloping vale far below, its details
miniature but clear in the mountain air. A few patches of vegetation on the vale looked promising, and it
was on the route he would be taking. But he would have to reach it in a roundabout way: tackling the
sheer cliff would be a foolish risk, and would not gain much time.

He left the plateau by means of a windswept, steeply angled rock face that led him towards a deep cleft
in the mountainside. The cleft took him downwards in a careful, step-by-step climb, until he was forced
into a sideways traverse across another steep slope. So he crept along at a cautious pace, clinging with
fingers and toes, as one bare rock face led to another, and another. He thought of how he would look
from a distance - like some wall-crawling insect, sidling its slow and aimless way across the looming
slopes. But he was not aimless. His mind held a detailed image of his route - and every traverse, every
cleft, took him steadily downwards.

It was almost midday before he found a swifter path. Where the flanks of two mountains met, a narrow
and almost vertical crack opened downwards for several hundred metres, towards the vale that he had
seen from the plateau. The sides of the crack were broken and split, and for Keill were as good as a
ladder. He went down it with ease, grateful for the years of barefoot training that had left his soles
leathery and tough.

Eventually the crack petered out into a sloping furrow of gravel and loose rubble. There he paused to
rest, looking downwards with satisfaction. The strip of gravel widened into an expanse of loose scree,
which inclined sharply down to a long, smooth spur of rock. And the spur led down towards the gentle
sweep of the vale, with its vegetation that hinted at the presence of water.

He moved forward, wary of the plunging slope of scree, dotted here and there with small boulders. One
misstep could send him sliding the full distance in an avalanche of gravel and rock. Under his fingers and
toes, small pebbles and trickles of sand slid down and away, like ominous forerunners of the threatened
landslide. But he moved on, watchfully. He was aiming for one of the small, rounded boulders that bulged
out of the scree, which might offer some solidity. But when his foot touched the boulder, he found it was
not solidly fixed. It moved - but it did not slide downwards.

It moved, impossibly, up towards him.

And from under it, or within it, something emerged - and four rows of teeth like needles snapped at his
bare ankle.



But the teeth clashed together harmlessly, for again Keill's reactions saved him. He hurled himself