"Robin Hobb - Liveship 2 - Mad Ship" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

bugled.
Silver and shimmering, the school of fish came gliding toward them like a
blessing. Behind the fish, shadowing them and feeding from the edges of the
school, was another tangle of serpents. Three scarlets, a green and two blues
they were. The hunters were not a large tangle but they appeared lively and
healthy. Their gleaming hides and full flesh contrasted markedly with the
slipping scales and sunken sides of Maulkin's tangle.
"Come," Maulkin bade them, and led them to join the others in their
feeding. Shreever made a tiny sound of relief. There would be, at least, full
bellies for them. Perhaps the others might even join Maulkin's tangle, once
they realized he was a prophet.
Their prey were not separate fish, but a school, silver and glinting,
baffling to the eye. They moved as one creature, yet it was a creature that
could separate and stream around a clumsy hunter. The serpents of Maulkin's
tangle were not clumsy hunters, and all three flowed gracefully after the
fish. The other tangle trumpeted warnings at them, but Shreever saw no danger.
With a lash of her tail, she drove herself into the school, her gaping jaws
engulfing at least three fish. She distended her throat to swallow them.
Two scarlet serpents suddenly turned aside and struck Maulkin, battering
him with their snouts as if he were a shark or other mutual enemy. The blue
came after Shreever, jaws gaping. With a swift coiling she eluded him,
changing direction to dart away. She saw the other scarlet try to wrap
Sessurea. The scarlet's mane was distended, spewing poison as he trumpeted
obscenities and threats. There was neither sense nor syntax to his curses,
only fury.
She fled, shrilling her fear and confusion. Maulkin did not follow. He
shook his great mane, releasing a cloud of toxins that near stunned the
scarlets. They backed away, shaking their open jaws and pumping their gills as
they strove to flush his poisons away.
"What is the matter with you?" Maulkin demanded of the strange tangle. He
twisted himself through a spiral, his mane distending threateningly as he
rebuked them. He summoned a faint gleam to his false-eyes. "Why do you attack
us like soulless beasts fighting over food? This is not the way of our kind!
Even if there were few, fish belong only to the one who catches them, not to
those who see them first. Have you forgotten who you are, what you are? Have
your minds been stolen completely?"
For a moment the other tangle hung motionless, save for the slight flicks
of their tails stabilizing them. The school of fish fled, forgotten. Then, as
if the very sanity of Maulkin's words had incensed them, they turned on him.
All six converged, jaws wide to display their teeth, manes erect and streaming
toxins, tails lashing. Shreever watched in horror as they wrapped him and bore
him struggling down to the muck.
"Help me!" Sessurea trumpeted. "They'll smother him!"
His words broke her paralysis. Side by side, they arrowed down, to butt
and lash at the tangle that held Maulkin captive. The other tangle savaged him
with their teeth, as if he were prey. His blood mingled with his toxins in a
choking cloud as he struggled. His false-eyes glimmered through the rising
murk. Shreever cried out in horror at the mindless brutality of the attack.
Yet, she found herself slashing at them with her teeth while Sessurea used his
greater length to whip at them.