"Zach Hughes - Killbird" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

Scanned by Highroller.

Proofed by the best elf proofer.

Made prettier by use of EBook Design Group Stylesheet.



Killbird by Zach Hughes
Chapter One

On the second day of the second moon of summer I saw the bloodflag
hanging limply atop Yuree's hidehouse. A hunter's morning it was, with
the mist hanging in the lows. The Lake of Clean Water was there, under
the mist. The sun was climbing toward his first leap over the Far Hills.

I had been awake to see the stars die in the early light, to hear the call
of the nightbirds as they settled into their secret places, to prepare myself,
with water heated over a low fire, using the honed edge of my hardax to
scrape away my curse.

I untied the flap of my hidehouse and stood, my face smarting. It is said
that not one in a thousand has the curse. I had never known another. For
all those beyond the Far Hills who, one in a thousand, suffered, I uttered a
prayer to the gods of man. And in the midst of my prayer I saw it, looking
up the slight slope to see the couch cover with the almost unnoticeable
blood signal. I felt my face burn with a new feeling, not only from the
scraping. With my heart pounding I dived back into my hidehouse. The
day was not unexpected, had, indeed, been foretold, within half a moon
period it turned out, by old Seer of Things Unseen.

Because I was of an early-rising nature, due to my curse, I was the first,
waiting outside the hidehouse of Strabo of the Strongarm, my hardax
lying atop the pile of buythings. It was not an unimpressive pile, I felt,
topped by the well-tanned skins of the swimmers. In addition to the
swimmer skins, soft fur for the soft skin of Yuree, there were two handcut
buckets of wood filled with the sweetness of the stingers, a pile of god's
jewels, two huge skins of the two largest bears ever to be killed by a
member of the Strongarm family, and toys carved to please
YureeтАФfemales being, at best, somewhat frivolous.

Indeed, I had nothing to be ashamed of, except myself.

I heard movement inside the large hidehouse where Strongarm slept
and then the flap was untied and thrown open and I saw the powerful
arms which gave our family head his name. Still a young man, Strabo had
the eyes of a killer of birds, the legs of a perfect man, the stout, short body
of our people. He wore the feathers of a family head with authority, and it
was he who had shown the courage to take the family over four ridges into
the Valley of Clean Water, thus bringing new prosperity to all.