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

of protection from the smaller branches which whipped him as they tore along.
He wore nothing on his head but a leather skull cap, his copper helmet being
kept in one of the saddlebags. He kept one hand raised to guard his face and
mentally flogged the morse again. The big beast responded with increased speed
and also rising irritation, which Hiero felt as a wave of mental heat.
Sorry, I'll let you do your own job, he sent, and tried to relax. No one was
exactly sure just how intelligent a morse really was. Bred from the mutated
giant moose many generations before, although well after The Death, they were
mar-
ine SIGN OF THE FISHHOOK
velous draft and riding animals. The Abbeys protected their herds carefully
and sold their prized breeding stock with great reluctance. But there was a
stubborn core of independence which no one had been able to breed out, and
allied to it, an uncertain but high degree of intelligence. The Abbey psykes
were still testing their morses and would continue to do so.
Hiero swore suddenly and slapped at his forehead. The mosquitoes and black
flies were attacking, and the splash of water below indicated Klootz was
aiming for a swamp. Behind them, the uproar of the herd was growing muted. The
buffer did not like swamps, although quite capable of swimming for miles at
need.
Hiero did not like swamps either. He signaled "halt" with his legs and body,
and Klootz stopped. The bull broke wind explosively. "Naughty," Hiero said,
looking carefully about.
Pools of dark water lay about them. Just ahead, the water broadened into a
still pond of considerable size. They had stopped on an island of rock,
liberally piled with broken logs, no doubt by the past season's flood waters.
It was very silent here, with the roar and grumble of the buffer only a
distant background noise now, behind them and to the east. A small, dark bird
ran down a lichened tree trunk and twittered faintly. Dark pines and pale
cypress rose directly from the water, cutting off sunlight and giving the
place a gloomy aspect. The flies and mosquitoes were bad, their humming attack
causing Hiero to pull up the hood of his jacket. The morse stamped and blew
out his great lips in a snort.
The ripple on the black surface was what saved them. Hiero ,$vas too well
trained to abandon all caution, even when slapping faigs, and the oily "V" of
something moving just under the ^tirface toward the island from farther out in
the open water Caught his eye as he looked about.
"Come on up," he shouted, and reined the big beast back on its haunches, so
that they were at least ten feet from the edge when the snapper emerged.
There was ho question of fighting, Even the holstered thrower at Micro's side,
and certainly his spear and knife, were almost useless against a full-grown
snapper. Nor did Klootz feel any differently, in spite of all his bulk and
fighting ability.
The snapper's hideous beaked head was four feet long and wide. The giant
turtle squattered out of the water in one
4 HIERO'S JOURNEY
explosive rush, clawed feet scrabbling for a hold on the rock, the high, gray,
serrated shell spraying foul water as it came, yellow eyes gleaming. Overall,
it must have weighed over three tons, but it moved very fast just the same.
From a sixty-five-pound maximum weight before The Death, the snappers had