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

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.