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

Sheryl hadn't eaten since leaving Centropolis yesterday morning. Already, her muscles were demanding their daily ration of meat, the red meat of a strong animal. She turned back to the caravan.

The two oxen the Horlas had slain would be more than enough for her. When the flies sensed her coming, they surrendered all claims on the carcasses. The unique vibrations of a Somelon preparing for battle were prohibitive to them. It was an awareness aggregated in their genes, and they were much too wise to ignore it.

Standing over one of the carcasses, Sheryl drew the sword from its sheath and sighted down its length. Already, small, brown flecks of rust were spreading over the blade. They had both been idle too long, dwelling in the sluggish company of men, wallowing in distractions. That was not the way a Somelon should live. Both her father's death and Kio had extracted a toll of her strength. Now she needed to regain that strength, to give it direction. When Sheryl's hands wrapped around the thick handle of the sword, the amalgam of muscle and steel re-created the old alchemy The power of a warrior pulsed back into her palms, surged up her arms, and raised the sword over her head. With one stroke, she sliced the carcass in half and carried it to the shade of an overturned wagon.

Sheryl could have taken fire from her bag and roasted the meat. That would have been the civilized thing to do. There was plenty of wood in the wagons. With the Horlas on the other side of the desert, there was no need to hide the smoke. Any other visitors would be welcomed to share her meat, to fight over it, or to die. Nor did she fear the eyes of strangers after she stripped off her armor and left her untanned skin exposed. Rather, she needed the water that formed the bulk of the flesh. So, sitting on a crate, she braided her blonde hair into a rope and ate the meat raw, cold, without really tasting it. The process was purely mechanical. Raising the meat to her mouth, she bit, tore, chewed, then swallowed. She ate not for pleasure, but to supply food for her muscles, liquid for her organs.

When the gristly meal was done, her stomach swollen, Sheryl left the shade to expose the full length of her body to the sun. It was almost a challenge to Shamask's power. The ivory surface of her body was immune to his searing rays. It scattered them so efficiently that the radiant heat could do no more than try to evaporate the beads of sweat squirming out of her pores before they slid down her face. As they ran over her neck, the drops collected together, spreading into a sheet over her breasts, then dripped off the tips of her nipples. Just grazing her navel, the drops became tangled in the small patch of blonde hair below until they dribbled down her thighs. The sunrays chased the rivulets around her body, and the swirl of air raised by the pursuit cooled and soothed her.

Sheryl took her sword in hand and held it erect. With the plaited bundle of her hair, she wiped the maroon ox blood from its surface. The gentle friction of those golden fibers rubbed away every congealed trace of the blood, 'though once they had run the full length of the blade, a trail of rust still traced over the steel. In the rubble between her toes she found a whetstone, black and smooth. She held it against the blade and slid it over the surface, pressing the stone lightly at first, pausing to give special attention to a particularly eroded spot, then passing on to another. Up one side she went, then down the other, polishing, working her way out toward the edge. When she reached that part of the blade that tapered into a cutting wedge, she slid the stone faster, in long, even strokes, while she lubricated it with her spit. Her hand vibrated, honing, smoothing over the blade's full length until the steel gleamed, a razor's edge.

Touching the tip of the blade to her tongue, Sheryl smiled when she felt it pierce easily through the skin. After she wrapped the handle with fresh strips of leather, the weapon was ready.

Sheryl now had to purify her body. -There was no water for bathing, but the clean, hot desert sand was as good as any perfumed balm. She lay face down in the dunes, wriggling to push her breasts and hips deep into the cleansing grains. While she worked her body through the sand, she slowly twisted until her face pointed skyward again. The blood, the oil, and the grime were scrubbed from her skin as her muscles were massaged by the penetrating heat. Sheryl ran the sand through her hair, over her face, scouring, absorbing till every pore and fiber was immaculate. Then she rested there until Shamask shrunk from the bare challenge of her beauty and he hid behind the horizon. Only then did Sheryl rise out of the sand.

As the cold wind drifted in off the desert again, it found Sheryl in full armor, and it could have cursed itself for not coming a few minutes sooner. It lingered to watch her straighten the bent wing on her helmet and slip it over her golden hair. The sword was slammed into its sheath.

Picking up a bundle of meat, Sheryl strode into the Sugar Desert. The wind followed on the heels of her fur boots.





Chapter 3

In the Sugar Desert


It was almost like slipping into a moonlit pool. Sheryl made little more than a ripple as she waded into the rapidly chilling air of the Sugar Desert. Gentle currents lifted her hair off her armored shoulders, then circled round to her nose to release the enchanted fragrances of flowers and herbs. As it shimmered over the silver horizon, the breeze had transported the scents all the way across the unbroken plain of the desert, and now it doled them out in carefully calculated measures, offering just a whiff before snatching them back. When the sweet smells dispersed, others rushed in to fill their places: the oil musks of creatures sliding into the night like crocodiles from the river bank.

In the beginning, the only sound was the steady, muffled splash of Sheryl's furred boots over the sand, the only light the greenish glow of the Najucular stones. Sheryl flowed through the darkness, and it welcomed her inside its folds. The head had already vaporized out of the ground, drawing with it the life of newts and dragons whose scaly bodies sank to the bottom to await the rush of dawn. But there were other creatures ready to scurry over their cold-blooded bodies, and only at night, when they thought they could escape the bloodboiling death of the sun, did they stir. Wet noses poked gingerly out of deep, damp burrows. Small dark eyes soaked in the moonlight, then squeezed it back out again as they wrung the atmosphere for traces of food.

Scattering eager cries, they scrambled until the entire floor of the desert was sown with stars from one skyline to the next. The night above merged into the night below to surround Sheryl in a vast globe of sparkling black velvet.

Her ears cocked and strained through the sound of her own quick breaths, the Somelon searched for warnings, vibrating signals as she stalked through the scorched landscape. In an hour she covered nine miles, which left thirty to go before there would be any shelter from the implacable Shamask, the sun racing around the earth to catch her. It was then that something shot out, wrapped itself around her ankle, and pulled her legs out from under her.

Before Sheryl's face even bit into the sand, the sword was out of its sheath and raised above her head, poised to fall. She spun around, her legs still in the grip of a creature she could not see. The thing was down there, somewhere beyond her foot. That was where the sword would strike.

"Sheryl," a weak voice whistled. "You put that sword down. Put it down, I say. Right now!"

A pair of glowing red eyes floated above her knee, then glided closer. Her sword could have cut right through them, yet she hesitated to slay something before knowing that it was, especially when they something knew her name.

"Sheryl," the thing whistled again. She let the sword ease down to the ground. Sheryl knew many of the creatures hunting the desert, and one of them was Kryl.

"Your old eyes charm the darkness better than mine," she said, chocking back a laugh. It wasn't because she was glad to see him, because she really couldn't see him. She recognized the rasping voice that had barked so often in her childhood. "And those eyes of yours almost got you dead."

"Ach, you wouldn't hurt Kryl."