"Kay Kenyon - Maximum Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Kay)

always shoot him later."

From the look on Janos's face, it was Zoya he'd like to shoot. "Get inside, Ship Mother. Now." He
turned his attention to the collapsed tent, striding over to the wreckage.

Two crew members were trying to pull the tent away from the impaled man, but the spear effectively
pinned it in place. They managed the task far enough to see that the victim was none of theirs. It was the
rag man, lying immobile. As they pushed back the loose tent fabric, they uncovered a dreadful scene.
Three other bodies lay in blood-drenched sand. Crew members were crouched down, taking their vital
signs.

Oh my children, Zoya thought. Oh, Fyodor.

The sled man, held firmly between two of the biggest crew-men, said something to her that she couldn't
catch. She looked at him closely for the first time, seeing a burly, bearded man, dressed in furs. He jutted
his chin at the tent.

In a fury, Janos advanced on him and struck him a blow across the face.

Zoya inserted herself between Janos and the sled man. "He's alone, for God's sakes," she spat at him.

Janos turned to her, taking hold of her arm. "Stay out of this." His words came out like bullets. Janos
pointed at crew-man Loski. "Take Ship Mother inside."

Loski took her gently by the elbow. But when Janos walked over to the fallen tent, Zoya followed him,
staring down her es-cort, who was clearly uncertain about manhandling Ship Mother.

Zoya saw one of the crew turn away from the scene, gag-ging-

Fyodor lay on the ground, his throat torn out, with strips of skin pulled back from his chest. It looked as
though he had been flailed. She had seen worse in her crisis-strewn life, but not by much.

Kneeling beside the fallen crew members, one of the men reported to Janos: "All dead, sir." He looked
up at the first mate as though Janos could change this, could order it to be differ-ent. Zoya knew that
look, and was thankful it wasn't, this time, aimed at her.

She crouched down next to Fyodor, closing his eyes with her hand. Next to Fyodor lay the man in
bloody rags. He had long black hair, no beard. And he was thin; bones of a once-large frame almost
poked through his skin. Dripping from his mouth, shreds of bloody tissue.
"Mother of God," someone whispered. Around her, the crew were just realizing that the man had been
eating Fyodor's flesh.

"Cover him," Zoya said, nodding at Fyodor's body. She placed her hand on the arm of the young
crewman to steady him.

She turned back to the crew holding the sled man by the arms. "You really should let him go. He killed
our attacker."

As though he knew he was being discussed, he made eye contact with her. "Widgen," he said. He
nodded at the impaled body. "Malid widgen."