"Sterling E. Lanier - Hieros 01 - Hiero's Journey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lanier Sterling E)

and Hairy Howlers, the Were-bears (which were not bears at all), the Slimers,
and several others besides. But these were new and, like all Leemutes,
unpleasant to look at. They were short, no more than four feet tall on the
average but very broad and squat, and walked erect on their hind legs, their
bushy tails dragging behind. They were completely covered with long, dripping,
oily-looking fur of a yellow-brown hue, and their beady-eyed faces were
pointed and evil. It would have been hard to trace their ancestry back to a
genetic accident in a wolverine family after The Death, even for a
contemporary expert, and Hiero simply catalogued them as a new and dangerous
breed. For they had actual hands, and their rounded heads and gleaming eyes
indicated intelligence of a high if nasty order. They wore no clothing, but
each carried a long-handled wooden club, in the head of which was set
glittering fragments of obsidian. A wave of evil purpose went before them like
a cloud of gas as they moved one behind the other, in a curious hopping gait,
which still covered the ground at a
i6
HlERO'S lOURNEY
good speed. Every few feet, the leader stopped to sniff the air and then
dropped to all fours to check the earth, while the others peered about on
every side. The three on the knoll above them froze into immobility, trying
not to breathe. The evil Furhoppers, as Hiero promptly named them, were
perhaps two hundred yards off and, if they continued their present course,
would pass down over the shallow slope of the bowl and up the other side,
moving off to the left of the three's position. But when the line of crouching
figures reached the center of the depression, it halted. Hiero tensed, one
hand instinctively reaching for his reliquary and the poison it contained. For
another figure had appeared and was advancing on the Fur-hoppers.
It was apparently a tall man, garbed in a long cloak of a dark gray, which was
closely wrapped around him and showed only his sandaled feet. His hood was
thrown back, and his naked, hairless head was revealed in the rays of the
evening sun. His skin was so pale as to appear deadwhite, and his eyes were a
shifting color, impossible to see at this distance. On the right breast of his
cloak was a spiral symbol, also difficult to see, etched in a dark scarlet, of
interwoven lines and circles. He seemed to carry no visible weapons, but an
aura of both spiritual power and cold menace radiated from him, as the chill
of a great iceberg goes out from it to warn seafarers.
This was an extraordinary chance, for good or ill, and Hiero knew it. The
Unclean had been rumored and more than rumored for centuries to have human
directors, a race of men totally given over to evil and wizardry. On several
occasions such people had been reportedly glimpsed directing attacks on Abbey
convoys or settlements, but the information was vague and contradictory. On
two occasions, however, men had been killed trying to penetrate the secret
training rooms and guarded files of Abbey Central in Sask. Each time, the
bodies of the slain had almost instantly dissolved into piles of corruption,
leaving nothing to be investigated, save for ordinary clothing, which might
have been acquired anywhere. But in each case, the Abbey guardians and priests
had been warned by mental alarms of the spirit, not of the flesh, and in each
case the manтАФor entityтАФhad penetrated through many men on guard who recalled
seeing nothing. This creature before him now could only be one of these
mysterious men who were thought to rule the