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

grown heroically, and they made many bodies of water impassable except by an
army. Even the Dam People had to take precautions.
Still, fast as it was, it was no match for the frightened morse. The big
animal could turn on half his own length and now did so. Even as the snapper's
beaked gape appeared over the little islet's peak, the morse and his rider
were a hundred feet off and going strong through the shallow marsh, back the
way they had come, spraying water in sheets. Stupid as it was, the snapper
could see no point in following further, and shut its hooked jaws with a
reluctant snap as the galloping figure of the morse disappeared around the
pile of windfalls.
As soon as they had reached dry ground, Hiero reined in the morse and both
listened again. The roar of the buffer's passage was steadily dying away to
the south and east. Since this was the direction he wanted to go anyway, Hiero
urged Klootz forward on the track of the migrating herd. Once more both man
and beast were relaxed, without losing any watchfulness in the process. In the
Year of Our Lord, seven thousand, four hundred, and seventy-six, constant
vigilance paid off.
Moving cautiously, since he did not wish to come upon a buffer cow with a calf
or an old outcast bull lagging behind the herd, Hiero steered the morse slowly
back to the road he had left earlier. There were no buffer in sight, but a
haze hung on the windless air, fine dust kicked up by hundreds of hoofed feet,
and piles of steaming dung lay everywhere. The stable reek of the herd blanked
out all other scents, something that made both man and morse uncomfortable,
for they relied on their excellent noses, as well as eyes and ears.
Hiero decided, nonetheless, to follow the herd. It was not a large one, he
estimated, no more than two thousand head at most, and in its immediate wake
lay a considerable amount of safety from the various dangers of the Taig.
There were perils too, of course, there were perils everywhere, but a wise man
tried to balance the lesser against the greater. Among the lesser were the
commensal vermin, which followed a buffer herd.
THE SIGN OF THE FISHHOOK 5
preying on the injured, the aged, and the juveniles. As Hiero urged the morse
forward, a pair of big, gray wolves loped across the track ahead of them,
snarling as they did. Wolves had not changed much, despite the vast changes
around them and the mutated life of the world in general. Certain creatures
and plants seemed to reject spontaneous genetic alteration, and wolves, whose
plasticity of gene had enabled thousands of dog breeds to appear in the
ancient world, had reverted to type and stayed there. They were cleverer,
though, and avoided confrontation with humans if possible. Also, they killed
any domestic dog they could find, patiently stalking it if necessary, so that
the people of the Taig kept their dogs close at hand and shut them up at
night.
Hiero, being an Exorcist and thus a scientist, knew this, of course, and also
knew the wolves would give him no trouble if he gave them none. He could
"hear" their defiance in his mind and so could his huge mount, but both could
also assess the danger involved, which was almost nonexistent in this case.
Reverting to his leaf-snatching amble, the morse followed the track of the
herd, which in turn was roughly following the road. Two cartloads wide, this
particular dirt road was hardly an important artery of commerce between the
East of Kanda and the West, out of which Hiero was now riding. The Metz