"George R. R. Martin - WC 4 - Aces Abroad" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

The bull-man seemed momentarily ready to dispute Calixte's apparent order, but
decided to back down. He continued to glower at Chrysalis and finger his
erection as he spoke in turn to the strangely garbed men who had accompanied
him.
Three of them came forward and dragged a protesting Dorian Wilde from the
backseat of the limo. The poet looked around bewilderedly, fixed his bleary eyes
on the bull-man, and giggled.
Calixte grimaced. He snatched his cocomacaques from Wilde and lashed out with
it, spitting the word "Masisi" as he struck.
The blow landed where Wilde's neck curved into his shoulder, and the poet moaned
and sagged. The three men supporting him couldn't hold him, and he fell to the
ground just as all hell broke loose.
The snap, crack, and pop of small-arms fire sounded from the foliage bordering
the roadside, and a couple of the men so strangely crowned by candles went down.
A few others broke and ran for it, though most held their ground. The bull-man
bellowed in rage and hurtled toward the undergrowth. Chrysalis, who'd dropped to
the ground at the first sound of gunfire, saw him get hit in the upper body at
least twice, but he didn't even stagger. He crashed into the underbrush and in a
moment high-pitched screams mixed with his bellowing.
Calixte crouched behind the limo and calmly returned fire. Digger, like
Chrysalis, was huddled on the ground, and Wilde just lay there moaning.
Chrysalis decided that it was time to exercise the better part of valor. She
crawled under the limo, cursing as she felt her expensive gown snag and tear.
Calixte dove after her. He snatched at her left foot, but only grabbed her shoe.
She twisted her foot, the shoe came off, and she was free. She scrambled all the
way under the limo, came out on the other side, and rolled into the jungle
foliage lining the roadside.
She took a few moments to catch her breath, and then was up and running, staying
low and keeping to cover as much as she could. Within moments she was away from
the conflict, safe, alone, and, she quickly realized, totally, utterly lost.
She should have paralleled the road, she told herself, rather than taking off
blindly into the forest. She should have done a lot of things, like spending the
winter in New York and not on this insane tour. But it was too late to worry
about any of that. Now all she could do was push ahead. Chrysalis never imagined
that a tropical forest, a jungle, could be so desolate. She saw nothing move,
other than tree branches in the night wind, and heard nothing other than the
sounds made by that same wind. It was a lonely, frightening feeling, especially
to someone used to having a city around them.
She'd lost her brooch watch when she'd scrambled under the limo, so she had no
way of measuring time other than the increasing soreness in her body and dryness
in her throat. Hours, certainly, had passed before, totally by accident, she
stumbled upon a trail. It was rough, narrow, and uneven, obviously made by human
feet, but finding it filled her with hope. It was a sign of habitation. It led
to somewhere. All she had to do was follow it, and somewhere, sometime, she'd
find help.
She started down the trail, too consumed by the exigencies of her immediate
situation to worry any more about Calixte's motives in bringing her and the
others to the crossroads, the identity of the strangely dressed men crowned with