"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 19 - Looters of Tharn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

looked like the horses whose skeletons Blade had seen near the city.

The riders, on the other hand, were unmistakably of three different peoples, apparently the same three
whose skeletons Blade had found along with the horses. Some were as stockily built as their mounts.
Others were tall and graceful, and most of them were unmistakably women. Still others seemed to be
combinations of the first two.

Then one tall rider's horse put a foot wrong and stumbled. The rider went sailing out of the saddle and
sprawled on the grass as his horse bolted. In the fall the rider's leather cap came off, revealing a totally
bald head. The man turned a grimy, deeply lined face up toward the approaching machine. Blade could
see terror on the man's face, terror that fought with a grim determination not to show it to a hated and
despised enemy.

Blade's hands danced over the controls, swinging the machine in a wide circle around the bald man.
There was something familiar about the bald man-not as an individual, but as a type. Memory stirred in
Blade, forming more precise images.

Blade could have sworn he was looking at a neuter of Tharn!

The man's garb was barbaric, his face was filthy and aged by strain and fear. But the bald head, the thin
neck and limbs, the great intent eyes-if this wasn't a neuter of Tharn, what was it? And where was he?

Blade decided he'd been offered a perfect opportunity to find out where he was. A quick glance at the
screens showed the horsemen still heading for the horizon as fast as their mounts could cover ground.
They were already far out of bowshot. Soon they would be clear out of sight. The bald man below
carried a short sword and a knife in his belt, but no bow. Nor did he look like a fighter, with his spindly
limbs.

Blade's hands moved again. The machine spiraled down in a tighter and tighter circle, until it touched
down on the grass less than fifty feet from the neuter. No-from the bald man. Blade told himself sharply
not to let his hopes rise. The man might be the image of a neuter of Tharn, but it was long odds against his
actually being one.

But the impossible had been known to happen, a small voice in the back of Blade's mind put in.

Blade unstrapped himself, rose, and stretched. Then he went to the locker and pulled out a helmet with
knives and a hatch-key. He wouldn't need any other weapons or protection against this man.

He drank several cups of water, found a canteen, filled it, and added it to the gear hanging from his belt.
He looked at the screen again. The bald man was standing knee-deep in the grass, motionless, his arms
crossed on his chest. He looked like a man resigned to his fate, but still slightly bewildered by the
suddenness of it all. Or was he bewildered by the absence of subsonics and the hypnotic light? He must
have realized by now that there was something unusual about this machine's behavior.

Blade stepped to the hatch and jabbed the button in the center. The hatch swung open and the cool
evening breezes flowed in and played pleasantly over his bare skin. He stepped out onto the rear
platform, closed the hatch behind him, and turned to look at the man.

The man was staring wide-eyed at Blade. His hands had dropped to his sides and Blade could see them
shaking slightly. The man's tongue was creeping back and forth over trembling lips. Whatever he had