"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 17 - The Mountains of Brega" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

women represented. But they were certainly men.
It also began to look as if they were the intended prey of the huntresses. Blade tensed in anticipation
of a sudden explosion of violence in the peaceful clearing below. His eyes drifted from the wild men to
the trees that concealed the women lying in ambush. They had covered their tracks well, but perhaps the
men would scent themтАФor him. That was an unpleasant thought. The wild men looked even less likely to
give him a peaceful reception than the women did.
Blade suddenly realized what the purpose of the sweetness in the pots was. Not only was it bait; its
strong odor would overwhelm any lingering traces of the scent of the women, and make the wild men
careless.
It was doing just that right now. The four men were scurrying across the clearing with cries of delight,
like children let out of school. Each of them headed straight to one of the pots and squatted down beside
it. With more cheerful cries and hoots, they thrust their massive hands inside and began scooping out the
contents. It was a thick, sticky paste, semitranslucent like crystallized honey, with white crystals of sugar
in it.
The wild men ate greedily, cramming the paste into their mouths in enormous dripping handfuls, then
gulping it down with frantic workings of mouth and throat. Blade had the impression that the paste was a
rare treat for them. So rare, in fact, that the desire to cram down as much of it as they could wiped out all
thoughts of possible danger. Blade shook his head in half-amused frustration. He was tempted to warn
the wild men, but would the warning penetrate their hunger-fogged minds even if he gave it? And what
would the women do then, the women lying in wait behind the trees?
Moments later, the women were no longer lying in wait. Like eight graceful cats, they leaped out from
their hiding places. Each had her short sword drawn, but carried it in her left hand. In her right hand each
swung one of the weighted cords.
Still absorbed in their feast, the wild men were fatally slow to react. Before more than one of them
could raise his hand or turn around, the weighted cords soared through the air. The weights whipped the
cords around arms and legs, pulling the men to a stop as they tried to rise and flee. Then they turned with
savage howls, snatched their clubs from their belts, and charged their attackers.
But the women had their swords ready as the wild men came at them. The swords stabbed and
flickered in the air in darting flashes of light. One of the wild men howled and dropped his club, clutching
at his stomach, where red blood was suddenly flowing over the filth-matted hair. In an instant the woman
who had struck him closed with him, jerking the cord so that he toppled to the ground. As he went
down, she shifted her grip on the sword and struck with the flat of the blade at his temple. There was a
solid smack, and the heavy-muscled arms and legs relaxed.
The other three men had managed to avoid the women's initial rush. Now they had formed a rough
triangle, back to back, waving their clubs and growling and cursing savagely at the women circling around
them. The bare-breasted woman threw her head back and laughed harshly. The leader motioned her to
silence with a sharp gesture of her spear.
Suddenly one of the wild men broke and ran. Blade noticed that he had a massive triangular blue scar
on his stomach. The cord around his treelike thigh went tight as a bar with an audible twang. One of the
women darted at him, but his club thrashed out at her, striking her sword aside with a clang. She jumped
back as suddenly as she had moved in, rubbing a hand numbed by the shock. The wild man jerked again
on the cord, making the woman holding it stagger and nearly lose her balance. The man's eyes widened
as he saw that. Waving his club high over his head, he threw it straight at the woman. It struck her on the
side of the jaw, and Blade heard the crunch of breaking bone. The woman gave a muffled scream of pain
and let go the cord.
Instantly the wild man leaped high into the air, six feet off the ground. He sailed over the heads of the
circle of women with a scream of triumph. Two waved swords frantically upward, one grabbed
desperately for her bow, the leader came rushing over with her spear held ready. But before any of them
could close, the scarred wild man was vanishing into the forest. Branches and twigs crackled behind him
in a rapidly diminishing uproar. Blade could not help hoping the fugitive would get away.