"Laurence Manning & Fletcher Pratt - City of the Living Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Manning Laurence)

тАЬHALF an hour later I shot a ptarmigan amid the snow and so tasted meat for the first time in three days. This was th
greatest luck, for the descent was worse than the climb on the other side had been. For a day I floundered amid the drif
and came at last to a place that dropped sheer for half a mile. There was no descent, so I had to turn back and try this
way and that. Three days I spent thus, going down and coming back, climbing and descending, before I deviously reach
the bottom. On the second day I tasted once more the kindness of the gods, for my foot touched a stone that touched
another and suddenly set off a landslide that cleared my path down the worst of the steeps.
тАЬAt last I stood at the base of the mountain, a place by no means lacking in piled rocks, but with no more dizzy
descents. For a time I lay on my face, prostrate, and clasped the fair grass with my bruised handsтАФgrass that felt softer
them than after the longest winter! Then I arose and, with such strength as I had left, staggered to the brim of Oster
Dalalven and plunged my face in the water; then by the brim of the stream I fell asleep, though the sun was still high in th
heavens.
тАЬI woke in the chill of dawn, with the memory of a sound ringing in the back of my head. As I started to my feet, I
heard again the sound that had roused meтАФthe baying of a dogтАФ and in a moment it was answered by multiple voices
when a pack of our Alvrosdale hounds course on the trail of a rabbit.
"Surely,тАЩ I thought, тАШthere must be men not far away in this dale, since there are menтАЩs dogs here,тАЩ and I climbed up
onto a boss of rock the better to see my way and the dogs that had sounded. As I reached the crest of the stone, the
hounds swept into view from the road not a hundred paces to my left, and came tearing along among the stonesтАФdogs
indeed, but such as I had never seen, strong and terrible of aspect, and not on the trail of a rabbit, but of a great antlered
deer. In a moment they were past, but two of the later members of the pack paused when they came to where I had
passed, sniffing and growling over the place where I had slept

тАЬ 'IF all the Anglesk are as great as their dogs, then theirs is indeed a mighty race,тАЩ I thought. The road itself was
curious, all overgrown and the stones pushed apart by grass and weeds; and the dried grass of other summers lay amon
the fresh, as though it had been there for a long time. Yet I mused not overmuch on it, for the road led up under the
Mountain of the South, and all men knew how that hill had risen between Alvrosdale and the world in a single night,
breaking sheer across the road and all else.
тАЬPerhaps a mile or two further along I saw houses clustered in a hamlet between road and river. Among them all ther
was no sign of life and while it might have been the earliness of the hour, I remarked it because of the other signs of
desolation on that journey and my heart misgave me. And as I drew near I was more surprised than ever, for in all that
village, which by the legends of the dale should have been a great and splendid place, there was neither sound of voice,
bark of dog, nor sign of smoke in the chimneys. A fear came upon me, and I ran forward, weak as I was. But at the firs
house my fear was confirmed. The door hung all awry with rust marks at its sideтАФ the doorsill split and dug up by the
frosts of winter, and the broken windows looking in on ruin and desolation.
тАЬI hastened to the next house and the next, and so on through the village. Some were of stone and some of purest gla
but all alike were empty; it was a village of the dead, but with no sign of dead or living. Only at the end of the village did
hear the bleating of sheep and, going to the spot, came upon a flockтАФnot well-kept, fat sheep such as we house in
Alvrosdale, but thin and lank, and their coats filled with briars. At my approach they made off toward the forest. I bent m
bow against them and slew a ewe, and taking of her meat went to one of the houses, thinking to cook the meat in that
ruined town; but in no house that I entered was there so much as a fireplaceтАФall were filled with Machines, now fallen t
dust and rust, and other appliances whose use I did not understand; so I built my fire in the open, using dead branches
from the trees.
тАЬThe food refreshed me much, and packing in my scrip as much more of it as I could conveniently carry, I followed t
road onward. Further down I came upon another House of Power, so like this that the two might have been built by the
same hand; and with fear strong within me I swung wide around it, yet had no need, for like all else in this dale, it was
lifeless.
 The Dead City

тАЬIT is sad to me even now in retrospect to think of coming to that place after a journey of so much arduousness. For
all that land of the Anglesk I found no living man nor heard any voice save those of the wild dogs as they bayed now ne