"Raymond Kaminski - The Amazons of Somelon v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kaminski Raymond)

At every impatient twitch of Amurti's body, the necklace around his neck clicked and rattled against his flashing breastplate. It was a long, looping string of molars, one for each man Amurti had freed from this earthly struggle. To prove his courage, he. extracted these enamel jewels from the squealing jaws of his victim before cutting off the head with a single slice of his axe. Unlike the other Horlas, who shunned armor as clumsy and the sanctuary of cowards, Amurti wore a breastplate of tooled copper. Inscribed on the soft metal were important scenes from his short life: his birth, his first kill, his first marriage. One very large panel was left empty: his future. Amurti insisted he wore the breastplate solely for decoration. In truth, the thin, soft metal offered almost no protection from even a sharp stick. Rather, he wanted to show them all--the Teutites, the Horlas, everybody-that Horlas weren't just a savage pack of stinking barbarians. He wanted to show them that the Horlas deserved respect, that they were capable of building as well as destroying. Amurti's mother had filled his head with these useless, romantic notions, and Micar realized that Amurti fully intended to one day rule the Horlas. That was the reason for the empty panel on the breastplate. And that was also the reason why Micar nursed a feeble hope for Amurti to fall glorious and dead in battle. It would spare Micar the everlasting shame of having to kill his own son.

To either side of Amurti were the twins, Cular and Mishla, who were born identical and remained that way until a well aimed lance plucked Mishla's eye from its socket. Inconsolable, he had refused to eat or fight until Cular struck out his own eye and made them twins again. Despite their wounds, the image of Micar was branded into their face.

The two brothers were archers, and they insisted that a single eye enhanced their aim by heightening their concentration on every shot. Each carried a bow carved out of the supple leg bones of the mad magician Praxus who had kidnapped them while they were infants and kept them in bondage until they grew big enough to turn on him. Both twins wore helmets that once were skulls of Watutes, the unfortunate race of giants they had helped drive to extinction.

Micar raised a scarred eyebrow when he saw the wolfish face of Maskim, the cretin, slinking around behind his sons. Maskim, immediately noting the master's displeasure, whispered a hasty appeal into the silver-sheathed ears of his mule, begging the beast to be still and stop shaking the sleighbells strung along the animal's shaggy flanks. Without' the wind to cover the sound, the chiming would carry as far as the wary Teutite ears, and Micar had no intention of forfeiting the advantage of surprise.

Maskim had also fitted his mule with leather shoes, and atop the animal's head tottered a straw hat woven with freshly cut petunias. Maskim had covered his oven head with a wreath of wild ivy and stuffed leaves through the coarse weave of his jerkin to disguise himself as a brother to the tree-a tree riding a mule sheathed in silver and strung with bells. Aluminum ear rings and a plastic eyepatch broke through the wisps of mousy hair covering his face to complete Maskim's battle dress. Today, the patch was over his right eye. On the last raid it had covered his left. There was nothing wrong with either eye, but he insisted the patch aided his concentration-just as it did for the twins. Despite this clownish appearance, it would be a mistake to discount this Horla. Maskim was as deadly as gangrene. He had survived many raids, and anyone, on either side, who survived a Horla raid had to be deadly. Maskim hadn't the brains for caution. There wasn't an ounce of sense in his entire warped body.

Maskim's ugliness was eclipsed by a tall rider slicing the thick night air with a scimitar at least five feet long. Micar smiled warmly at the sight of the bearded Careem, who was the distillation of Horla spirit and determination, for, though the warrior had but one arm, he kept his pony in place by pulling the end of his right shoulder. The arm had been severed in battle, while the hand still clutched a sword, by a Somelon, a member of that vicious race of women warriors. The green-eyed Sheryl, whose private vengeance against the Horlas knew no earthly bounds, had left him lying there with his blood spurting life from his arteries. Sure that he was dead, she went on to flush out and exterminate more Horlas. It was hatred for her that had kept his heart pumping, the chance for revenge that kept him alive. Now, his life was dedicated to meeting that gold haired Somelon again. Only her blood could stop the painful throbbing that clogged his quivering stump.

Filling the remainder of the canyon rim like a row of wild gargoyles on the wall of some medieval castle were the rest of Micar's savage mongrels. Each sat on a pony, since only Micar's family was allowed by tribal law the luxury of a horse. The ponies were quick little mounts that could outstep and outmaneuver any horse, though of course they hadn't the horse's strength and endurance. Standing between the bulky thighs of the Horlas, tan cowlicks hanging to their foreheads, they looked curiously harmless and invited a hand to reach out and brush the hair out of then eyes. Any hand that tried it came back bloody and lighter by a finger or two.

Now the Horlas, their ponies dripping scalps and skulls, turned to Micar. They held their painted leather shields low, confident that even this weak protection would be unnecessary. Their hands' clutched for fresh grips around the traditional tools of the Horla trade: battle-axes, spears, studded maces, and jagged chrome javelins. Inbred and mutilated by continuous warfare, their greasy bodies were clothed only in the untanned skins of animals they had slain; those brittle hide robes scraped against the skin until it bled and the wounds festered, then they scraped the scabs. But the Horlas scarcely noticed such petty discomforts, which were just another part of their lives, just like the dawn, dysentery, mange, or lice. They wouldn't lift a mangled, pony-bitten finger to change any of it. No, the Horlas survived, and they didn't do it by compromising, by adapting, or by solving problems. No, they rode right over anything that stood in their way-before it rode over them. They survived by sheer force, taking what they needed, as well as a lot they didn't need, from those too weak to stop them. It was a simple law of evolution, one that had worked. so well with animals. In the narrow confines of the Horla's mind, the only difference between rider and pony was that one was on top, the other on the bottom. It wasn't much different from the relationship of Horla women to Horla men-except where Allukah was concerned. The Horlas were a herd of collective impulses that listened to only one voice at a time.

As the moon finally shed its cloudy veil, as the caravan appeared below, that voice roared.

"Spare none!" Micar cried, his sword striking out in the direction of the wagons.

The Horlas plunged down the canyon walls in an avalanche of instinct.





Chapter 2

Scavengers



Buzzing. It started somewhere deep inside the skull, a snake about to hatch, wriggling, gnawing, thrashing against the shell till it cracked. Then the buzzing spread, seeping through the darkness, shredding into the brain, a violent yellow acid leaking into her eyes. She blinked once. Again. Only then did she realize she was staring at the sun.

Slapping at the flies boring into every moist pocket of her body, Sheryl wrenched herself around. The vertebrae in her neck grated like a millstone cracking grain. The pain twisted through her nerves, arching her spine. She shuddered, then drove her face into the sand. Breathing in great lungfuls of the dust she had raised, Sheryl lay there squirming for a long time waiting for her sight to return. Each slow second of that time was measured by the pounding in her head. Yet, not once did she wince, for Somelon warriors never show pain, not even when they are alone.

Gradually, sight trickled back. Summoning the energy, Sheryl propped herself up on her elbows and forced her head to turn one way then the next, as her blonde hair wiped across her soft, white shoulders, smearing the sweat and sand that clung to them. On all sides boulders blocked her crippled view, but she was in no hurry to see more. Sheryl remembered where she was and how she got there, and what was waiting beyond this circle of rocks. It would still be there in an hour, in a day. It would be out there forever, were it not for the jackals, both the two-legged and four-legged kinds, were it not for the buzzards,- the flies, and for the modesty with which the earth bandages its wounds with the sifting sands. Sheryl knew there was death strewn on the other side of those rocks, and she held back partly because she had done nothing to prevent it.

Sheryl had been asleep when the raiders struck, curled up like a child, a camp follower along with Kio in the back of the wagon, hiding from the wind. She had let herself -drift into his arms. And she enjoyed it. There was no denying that. She had enjoyed it too much. Sheryl had let her guard down, as no Somelon warrior could afford to do. Still, her reflexes had remained alert. As soon as the first war cry pierced the wagon's cover, she was scrambling in the darkness for her sword. The weapon never should have left its sheath-that lapse was unforgivable. But she was ready then, the blade light and eager in her left hand, the winged helmet in her right. While she hesitated there, halfway through the rear flap of the bucking wagon, before she could even slip on the helmet, a club crashed into her temple, sending her flying to the side of the road. Tumbling unconscious into the rocks, she had gone unnoticed in the confusion of slaughter and looting. It was all she could remember until now, except for the buzzing, the molten pain leaking from her head into her neck.

With her sword as a crutch, Sheryl struggled up to sit gratefully on one of the cold rocks. She didn't try to slow the dreams dashing through her brain, because they gave her an excuse not to look any further. But there was really no place to hide. Already, the stench of human flesh. fermenting in the heat of that treacherous sun, was slinking through the air toward her nose. She could put it off no longer.

Her arms moved first, unfolding from the protective. cradle they held around her steel-incased breasts. Reaching skyward, her limbs carried the aching body along with them until Sheryl stood her full -seven feet above the rocky ground. She continued to stretch, the muscles wriggling beneath her skin as she squeezed out the pain. It was an old Somelon trick, passed on by her mother. You twisted the nerves, the muscles, the bones, as you would a wet rag, tighter and tighter, until there was no room left for the pain to hide in. That was one of the few things Sheryl remembered about her mother along with a dripping mane of golden hair, a distaste for venison, and a brown scar shaped into a six-pointed star beneath her left breast. "Where Cupid's arrow entered," her mother had blushed, "when I met your father." Sheryl knew the arrow had really come from a Horla's bow. Her mother had been a warrior, as every Somelon must be. Then one night, the Horlas returned, and Sheryl had only her father left to comfort. She still could hear his sobs. They were woven into her eardrums.

As soon as her head cleared, _Sheryl took a step. Gratified by a wobbly success, she tried another till she was walking, climbing over the rocks. She kept her green eyes under strict control as she stepped down to the road and waded into the debris, not letting them stray to the right or left. Water was the primary concern. She needed it soon if she was to survive, so she couldn't let anything sidetrack her till the thirst was quenched.

She located a water bag on the side of an overturned wagon; it was like a dried prune dangling in the stagnant air. The bag had been slit open, and a small, sun-frozen puddle in the cracked dirt below attested to the cool liquid that had once filled the bladder. Sheryl slipped a hand in through the slit, and her fingers carefully explored the interior. A few drops still clung to the bottom, so she spread the bag apart and forced her head inside. Her parched tongue and lips slid over the smooth skin, licking, chasing each precious drop, and sucking it into her mouth. When she pulled her head out into the light again, her lips were glistening, but the sun soon dried them. The skin cracked. Sheryl ran her tongue over salty lips and released her eyes to roam.

The lead wagon had gotten as far as the end of the canyon. There, at the tail, Sheryl found the same scene. The raiders had waited until the caravan filled the road between the canyon walls, then they sealed it inside at both ends by slaying the animals that drew the wagons. The yokes of the middle wagons were empty. Those oxen were probably the only survivors of the raid besides Sheryl. But it was only a stay of execution. Once the raiders reached camp, there would be a feast to celebrate the victory. The main course would be oxtail soup.