"McCammon, Robert R. - The Wolf's Hour" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

Elana gasped. Anton had withdrawn his pistol from his holster and cocked it. УMake them go away!Ф Alizia said, tears in her eyes. УPlease make them go away!Ф Danalov pulled his pistol out and eased the hammer back.
Gallatinov stepped in front of his wife and daughter, his eyes black with fury. УHow dare you raise a gun to me and my family!Ф He lifted his cane. УDamn you to hell. Put down those pistols!Ф
УWe have a proclamation to read,Ф Schedrin said, undaunted. He removed a rolled-up piece of paper from his saddlebag and opened it. УTo General Fyodor Gallatinov, in service to Czar Nicholas the Second, heroФЧhe smiled thinlyЧУof Kowel and commander of the Guards Army. From the survivors of the Guards Army, who suffered and were slaughtered by the ineptitude of Czar Nicholas and his imperial court. Since we cannot have the czar, we will have you. And so the case will be closed to our satisfaction.Ф
An execution squad, Gallatinov realized. God only knew how long theyТd been tracking him. He glanced quickly around; no way out. Mikhail. Where was the boy? His heart was beating hard, and his palms were sweating. Alizia began to sob, but Elana was silent. Gallatinov looked at the guns and the eyes of the men who aimed them. There was no way out. УYouТll let my family go,Ф he demanded.
УNo Gallatinov will leave this place alive,Ф Schedrin replied. УWe understand the importance of a task well done, Comrade. Consider thisЕ your private Kowel.Ф He unstrapped his rifle and pulled back the bolt to chamber a shell.
УYou goddamned dogs!Ф General Gallatinov said, and stepped forward to strike the manТs face with his cane.
Anton shot him in the chest before the cane was swung. The pistolТs crack made Elana and her daughter jump, and the noise echoed across the meadow like strange thunder. A brooding of ravens leaped from a treetop and winged for safety.
Gallatinov was hurled backward by the force of the bullet, and fell to his knees in the grass. Crimson was spreading across the front of his uniform. He gasped, could not find the strength to stand. Elana screamed and fell down beside her husband, her arms around him as if she could protect him from the next bullet. Alizia turned, began to run toward the lake, and Danalov shot her twice in the back before sheТd gotten ten feet away. She tumbled, a sack of bloody flesh and broken bones.
УNo!Ф Gallatinov said, and got his good leg under him. Blood was creeping from his mouth, and his eyes glinted with terror. He started to rise, Elana still clinging to him.
Schedrin pulled the rifleТs trigger, and the bullet hit Gallatinov in the face. Bits of bone and brain splattered over ElanaТs dress. The jittering body fell backward, carrying Elana with it, and they fell over the picnic baskets, bottles of wine and crumb-flecked platters. Danalov shot Gallatinov in the stomach, and Anton fired two more bullets into the manТs head as Elana continued to shriek.
УOh dear God,Ф Dimitri said, choking, and he ran down to the lakeТs edge to be violently sick.

Mikhail heard a series of high cracking noises, followed by a scream. He stopped, and the beasts that were tracking him also halted. His motherТs voice, he realized. His face tightened with fear, and he began to run through the forest heedless of the danger at his back.
Vines gripped his shirt and tried to trip him. He followed the trail of stones through the underbrush, his boots slipping on moss-covered rocks and sinking into ankle-deep pools of dead leaves. And then he burst out of the forest into the meadow and saw three men on horseback and bodies lying sprawled. Red gleamed on green grass. His stomach knotted, his knees seized up, and he saw one of the men pull back the bolt of his rifle and aim at hisЕ
УMother!Ф he shouted, his voice echoing horror across the meadow.
Anton and Danalov looked toward the boy. Elana Gallatinov, on her knees with her white dress dripping blood, saw him standing there, and she screamed, УRun, Mikhail! RuЧФ
The rifle bullet hit her below the hairline. Mikhail saw his motherТs head explode.
УGet the boy!Ф Schedrin commanded, and Anton lifted his smoking pistol.
He stared, transfixed, at the black eye of the gun barrel. A Gallatinov never runs, he thought. He saw the manТs finger twitch on the trigger. A gout of fire leaped from the black-eyed barrel, and he heard a waspish whine and felt heat on his left cheek. A branch snapped beyond his shoulder.
УKill him, damn it!Ф Schedrin yelled as he chambered another bullet into his rifle and wheeled his horse around. Danalov was taking aim at Mikhail, and Anton was about to squeeze off a second shot.
A Gallatinov ran.
He twisted around, his motherТs scream ringing in his mind, and fled into the forest as a bullet thunked into a tree to his right and showered his hair with splinters. He tripped over a vine, staggered, and almost fell. There was the hoarser crack of a rifle shot, and the bullet passed over MikhailТs skull as he struggled for balance.
Then he was picking up speed, tearing into the underbrush, sliding on dead leaves, and fighting through tangles of thorns. He toppled into a gulley, got up, and scrambled out, heading deeper into the wilderness.
УCome on!Ф Schedrin told the others. УWe canТt let the little bastard get away!Ф He dug his heels into his mountТs flanks and entered the forest with Anton and Danalov riding just behind him.
Mikhail heard the thunder of hooves. He clambered up a rocky hillside and half ran, half slid down the descending side. УOver there!Ф he heard one of the men shout. УI saw him! This way!Ф
Thorns whipped Mikhail in the face and tore across his shirt. He blinked back tears, his legs pumping. A shot rang i out, and hit a tree trunk five feet away. УSave your bullets, idiot!Ф Schedrin commanded, getting a quick glimpse of the boyТs back before the branches covered his flight.
Mikhail ran on, his shoulders hunched against the expected impact of a lead slug. His lungs were burning, his heart hammering through his chest. He dared to glance back. The horses and men raced after him, dead leaves flying up in their wake. He looked ahead again, angled to the left, and ran into thick green undergrowth laced with creepers.
AntonТs horse stepped into a gopher hole. The animal bellowed and fell, and AntonТs right knee burst open like an overripe fruit as he landed on a sharp-edged rock. He screamed in agony, the horse writhing and trying to get up, but both Schedrin and Danalov kept up their pursuit.
Mikhail fought through the undergrowth, slanting down into a valley cloaked with green. He knew full well what would happen if the killers caught him, and fear gave him wings. His feet slipped out from beneath him on a bed of pine needles, and he slid through a place where the shadows had grown crimson mushrooms. Then he was up and running again, and behind him he heard a horseТs whinny and a man shouting, УHeТs over here! Going downhill!Ф
Ahead was dense forest, close-packed evergreens and thick coils of thorn bushes and stands of wild red berries. He headed for the thickest of it, hoping to leap into the coils and fight his way to the bottom, to a place where the horsemen couldnТt follow. He reached out, parted the emerald growth with bleeding handsЧand came face to muzzle with the beast.
It was a wolf, with dark brown eyes and sleek russet fur. Mikhail fell backward, his mouth open but the scream shocked out of him.
The wolf leaped.
Its jaws opened, and the teeth gouged furrows across MikhailТs left shoulder as it slammed him to the earth. The breath was knocked out of him, as was all sense. The wolfТs teeth clamped on his shoulder, about to tear through the I flesh and crush the bones; and then the horse bearing Sergei Schedrin burst through the brush and reared, its eyes flaring with terror. Schedrin lost his rifle, and he cried out, clinging I to the horseТs neck as he saw the wolf beneath his boots.
The animal released MikhailТs shoulder, spun around in a smooth, graceful motion, and bit deeply into the horseТs stomach. The horse made a strangled moan, kicked wildly, and fell onto its side, trapping SchedrinТs legs beneath.
УHoly Jesus!Ф Danalov shouted, reining in his horse on the hillside. Two seconds after heТd spoken, the large gray wolf that had been tracking him leaped onto the horseТs flank, clawed up over it into the saddle, and clamped its fangs into the back of DanalovТs neck. It shook Danalov like a rag doll, snapping his spine and driving him out of the saddle to the ground. The horse thrashed and tumbled, rolling down the hillside in a flurry of dead leaves and pine needles.
A third wolf, this one blond with ice-blue eyes, darted in and grasped DanalovТs flailing right arm. With a savage twist, the beast broke it at the elbow and the splintered bones tore through the manТs flesh. DanalovТs body jerked and writhed. The gray wolf that had knocked him out of the saddle closed its jaws on DanalovТs throat and crushed the windpipe with a casual squeeze.
As Schedrin struggled to free his legs the russet wolf finished tearing the horseТs stomach open. Coils of steaming intestines slid from the gaping wound, and the horse shrieked. Another beast, pale brown streaked with gray, leaped from the brush and landed on the horseТs throat, tearing it open with teeth and claws. Schedrin was screamingЧa high, thin screamЧand digging his fingers into the earth to try to pull loose. Only a few feet away Mikhail sat up, stunned and half conscious, with blood and wolf saliva drooling from the wounds in his shoulder.
Over the hilltop Anton heard the sounds of violence and gripped his ruined knee. He tried to crawl through the thicket, his horse struggling to rise on a broken ankle. He crawled perhaps eight feetЧfar enough to drive agony through every nerve of his bodyЧwhen two smaller wolves, one dark brown and the other a dusky red, came together from the underbrush and each clenched a wrist, breaking the bones with quick snaps of their heads. Anton cried out for God, but in this wilderness God had fangs.
The two wolves, working in concert, broke AntonТs shoulders and rib cage. Then the red one seized AntonТs throat while the dark brown beast clamped its jaws to the sides of the manТs head. As Anton trembled and moaned, reduced to a mindless husk, the animals crushed his throat and broke open his skull like a clay pot.
Schedrin, his hands clawing the earth, had pulled himself partway free from the shuddering weight atop him. Tears of terror streamed from his eyes, and he grasped hold of a small sapling and kept pulling. The sapling cracked. He smelled the coppery reek of blood, felt sickening heat wash across his face, and he looked around into the maw of the pale brown beast.
Blood dripped from its mouth. It stared into his eyes for maybe three terrible seconds, and Schedrin sobbed, УPleaseЕФ
The wolf lunged forward, gripped the flesh of his face between its fangs, and ripped it off the skull, as if peeling away a mask. Raw red muscles danced underneath, and the grinning skullТs teeth chattered. The wolf planted its paws on SchedrinТs shoulders and gulped the manТs shredded face down with a shiver of excitement. SchedrinТs lidless eyes stared from the bloody skull. The gray wolf, large-shouldered and rippling with muscle, came in and broke SchedrinТs neck. The russet animal snapped SchedrinТs lower jaw away and tore the hanging tongue out. Then the pale brown beast seized the dead manТs skull, cracked it open, and began to feast.
Mikhail moaned softly, fighting to stay conscious, his senses brutalized.
The russet wolf that had bitten his shoulder turned toward him, and began to advance.
It got within four feet and halted, sniffing the air to catch MikhailТs scent. Its dark eyes stared into MikhailТs face and held his gaze. Seconds passed. Mikhail, near fainting, stared back, and in his delirium of pain and shock he thought the beast was asking him a question, and that question might have been: Do you want to die?
Mikhail, holding the animalТs penetrating stare, reached out to one side and picked up a piece of branch. He lifted it, his hand trembling, to strike the wolfТs skull when it lunged.
The wolf paused. Motionless, its eyes like fathomless dark whirlpools.
And then the gray animal roughly nudged the other wolfТs ribs, and the death trance broke. The russet wolf blinked, gave a snorted whuffЧa sound of acknowledgmentЧand turned away to continue its feast on the ruins of Sergei Schedrin. The gray one shattered SchedrinТs breastbone and gnawed in after the heart.
Mikhail held the stick with a white-knuckled grip. Over the hilltop one of the animals feasting on AntonТs corpse gave a low howl that rapidly built in intensity, echoing through the forest and scaring birds out of the trees. The blond, blue-eyed wolf paused in its chewing of DanalovТs shredded torso and lifted its head to the breeze, replying with a howl that made a shiver course up MikhailТs spine and cleared the misty pain from his head. The pale brown animal began to howl, then the russet wolf, singing in eerie harmony with blood-smeared muzzles. Finally the gray wolf lifted its head and sang a wailing, discordant note that silenced the others. The note wavered, grew in power and volume, changed pitch, and slid upward. Then the gray wolf abruptly ceased its singing, and all the wolves returned to their horsemeat and human flesh.
From the distance came a howling that lasted maybe fifteen seconds, faded, and died.