"Tanya Huff - Victoria Nelson - 02 - Blood Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20d...%20Huff%20-%20Victoria%20Nelson%20-%2002%20-%20Blood%20Trail.txt




Copyright ┬й 1992 by Tanya Huff.

All Rights Reserved. Cover art by John Jude Palencar. DAW Book Collectors No. 873.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen
property and reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the
publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

For DeVerne Jones, who patiently answered hundreds of questions including a few it never occurred to
me to ask.

With special thanks to Ken Sagara, whose generosity was responsible for me finishing this manuscript
on time, vision intact.


One

The three-quarter moon, hanging low in the night sky, turned even tamed and placid farmland into a
mysterious landscape of silver light and shadows. Each blade of grass, toasted golden brown by two
months of summer heat, had a thin black replica stretching out behind it. The bushes along the fence
bottom, highways for those too timid to brave the open fields, rustled once and then were silent as some
nocturnal creature went about its business.

Their summer-shorn fleece turned milky white by the moonlight, a large flock of sheep had settled for
the night in one corner of the meadow. Except for the rhythmic motion of a number of jaws and the
occasional flick of an ear or twitch of a lamb unable to be still for long, even in sleep, they appeared to
be an outcropping of pale stone. An outcropping come suddenly to life as several heads rose at once,
aristocratic noses pointed into the breeze.

They were obviously familiar with the creature that bounded over the fence and into the meadow, for
although the ewes remained alert they watched it approach with mild curiosity rather than alarm.

The huge black beast paused to mark a fence post, then trotted a few steps into the field and sat down,
gazing back at the sheep with a proprietary air. Something in its general outline, in the shape of its head,
said wolf just as its coloring, its size, its breadth of chest, and the reaction of the flock said dog.

Convinced that all was as it should be, it began to lope along the edge of the fence bottom, plumed tail
streaming behind it like a banner, moon-silvered highlights rippling through its thick fur with every
movement. Picking up speed, it leapt a thistle - more for the sheer joy of leaping than because the thistle
was in its way - and cut diagonally across the lower end of the pasture.

With no more warning than a distant cough, the gleaming black head exploded in a shower of blood and

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...20Victoria%20Nelson%20-%2002%20-%20Blood%20Trail.txt (1 of 226)23-2-2006 23:07:38
 file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20d...%20Huff%20-%20Victoria%20Nelson%20-%2002%20-%20Blood%20Trail.txt