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

Dark motes spun across MikhailТs vision. He pressed his hand to his shoulder. In the wounds muscle tissue showed bright pink. He almost shouted for his mother and father, but then the images of corpses and murder slammed into his brain again and knocked him witless.
Not witless enough, however, to realize that sooner or later the wolf pack would tear him to pieces.
This was not a game. This was not a fairy tale told to him by his mother in the golden glow of lamplight. This was not Hans Christian Andersen or AesopТs fables; this was life and death.
He shook his head to force back the twilight. Run, he thought. A Gallatinov never runs. Got to runЕ got toЕ
The pale brown, gray-streaked wolf and the blond one I snapped at each other over the red chunks of DanalovТs liver. Then the blond beast backed off, allowing the dominant animal to gobble up the bits of meat. The large-shouldered gray wolf was ripping pieces out of the horseТs flanks.
Mikhail crawled away from them, pushing himself backward with his boots. He kept watching them, expecting an attack: the blond wolf stared at him for a second, blue eyes glittering, then began to feed on the horseТs entrails. Mikhail pushed himself into the thicket, the breath rasping from his lungs, and at the center of thorns and green creepers he lost consciousness and fell into night.

The afternoon passed. The sun began to sink. Blue shadows laced the forest, and chill pockets formed. The corpses shrank, being whittled down to their foundations. Bones cracked, the ghosts of pistol shots, and the red marrow lay exposed.
The wolves ate their fill, then lodged chunks of meat in their gullets to be regurgitated. Their bellies swollen, they began to drift off into the gathering shadows.
Except for one. The large gray wolf sniffed the air and stood near the little boyТs body. It nosed around the oozing wounds on MikhailТs shoulder, and smelled the tang of blood mingled with wolf saliva. The beast stood staring down into MikhailТs face for a long time without moving, as if in solemn contemplation.
It sighed.
The sun was almost gone. Faint specks of stars appeared over the forest in the darkening east. A crescent moon hung above Russia.
The wolf leaned forward, pushing the boy over on his stomach with its blood-caked muzzle. Mikhail groaned softly, stirred, then lapsed again into unconsciousness. The wolf clamped its jaws gently but firmly around the back of the childТs neck, lifting the limp body off the ground with muscular ease. The beast began to stride through the forest, its amber-eyed gaze ticking to right and left, its senses questing for the enemy. Behind it, the childТs boots dragged on the ground, and plowed furrows in the leaves.


3

Sometime, somewhere, he heard a chorus of howls. They rang out through the darkness, over the forest and hills, over the lake and the meadow where corpses lay amid the dandelions. The wolf song soared, breaking into discordant notes and returning to harmony again. And Mikhail heard himself moan, in crude emulation of the howling, as pain racked his body. He felt sweat on his face, a savage burning in his wounds. He tried to open his eyes, but the lids were gummed shut by dried tears. In his nostrils was the odor of blood and meat, and he felt hot breath on his face. Something rumbled nearby, like a steady bellows.
The merciful darkness closed around him once more, and he slipped away in its velvet folds.
The high, sweet trilling of birds awakened him. He knew he was conscious, but he wondered for a moment if he were in heaven. If so, God hadnТt healed his shoulder, nor had the angels kiss the sticky tears from his eyes. He had to almost rip the lids open.
Sunlight and shadow. Cold stones and the smell of ancient clay. He sat up, his shoulder shrieking.
No, not heaven, he realized. It was still the hell heТd fallen into yesterday. Or he thought a day mustТve passed, at least. This was a golden morning sun, glinting brightly in the tangle of trees and vines he could see through a large, glassless oval window. The vines had entered the window, and latched on to the wall where a mosaic of figures bearing candles had faded to shades.
He looked up, his neck muscles stiff and aching. Above him was a high ceiling, crossed with wooden beams. He was sitting on the stone floor of a huge room, sunlight streaming through a series of windows, some of which still held fragments of dark red glass. Vines, drunk with the springtime sun, festooned the walls and dangled from the ceiling. The branch of an oak tree had entered one of the windows, and pigeons cooed in the rafters.
It occurred to him, quite simply, that he was a long way from home.
Mother, he thought. Father. Alizia. His heart stuttered, and fresh tears ran down his cheeks. His eyes felt burned, as if scorched by sight. All dead. All gone. He rocked himself, staring at nothing. All dead. All gone. Bye-bye.
He sniffled once, and his nose drooled. And then he sat up straight again, his mind flaming with fear.
The wolves. Where were the wolves?
He could sit here in this place, he decided. Sit right here until someone came for him. It wouldnТt be long. Someone would surely come. WouldnТt they?
He caught a metallic whiff, and looked to his right. On the mossy stone next to him was a piece of bloody meat that might have been a liver. Beside it lay a dozen or so blueberries.
Mikhail felt his lungs freeze. A scream hung in his bruised throat. He scrambled away from the gruesome offering, making an animalish moaning noise, and he found a corner and wedged himself into it. He shivered and retched, losing the remnants of his picnic lunch.
No one was going to come, he thought. Ever. He shook and moaned. The wolves had been here, and they might be back very soon. If he was going to live, he would have to find his way out of this place. He sat, huddled up and shivering, until he could force himself to stand. His legs were unsteady, and threatened to collapse. But then he got himself all the way up, one hand clamped to the throbbing fang wounds at his shoulder, and he lurched out of the room into a long corridor lined with more mosaics and moss-draped statues without heads or arms.
Mikhail saw an exit to his left and went through the portal. He found himself in what might have been, yearsЧdecadesЧago, a garden. It was overgrown and choked with dead leaves and goldenrod, but here and there a sturdy flower had sprung from the soil. More statues stood about, gesturing like silent sentinels. In the midst of intersecting paths was a white stone fountain, full of rainwater. Mikhail paused at it, cupped his hands into the water, and drank. Then he splashed it on his face and over the shoulder wounds; the raw flesh burned, and made tears creep down his cheeks. But he bit his lower lip and hung on, then looked around to see exactly where he was.
The sun threw light and shadows upon the walls and turrets of a white palace. Its stones were the hue of bleached bone, and the roofs of its minarets and onion domes were the pale green of ancient bronze. The palaceТs turrets stretched up into the treetops. Stone stairways wound upward to observation platforms. Most of the windows had been broken, smashed by invading oak branches, but some of them remained; they were made of multipaned, multicolored glass, some dark red, others blue, emerald, ocher, and violet. The palace, a deserted kingdom, cast walls of white stone around the garden but had failed to keep out the forest. Oaks had burst upward through geometric walkways, shattering manТs order with the brutal fist of nature. Vines had snaked through cracks in the walls, displacing hundred-pound stones. A thicket of black thorns had pushed out of the earth under the feet of a statue, thrown it over, and broken its neck, then embraced its victim. Mikhail walked through the green desolation and saw a crooked bronze gate ahead. He staggered to the gate and used all his strength to pull the heavy, ornate metal open. The hinges squealed. He faced another wall, this one formed of dense forest. In this wall there was no gate. No trails showed the way home. There was nothing but the woods, and Mikhail realized at once that it might go on for many miles and in each mile he might meet his death.
The birds sang, stupidly happy. Mikhail heard another sound as well; a fluttering noise, oddly familiar. He looked back at the palace, lifting his gaze toward the treetops. And there he saw it.
His kiteТs string had wrapped itself around the thin spire atop an onion dome. The kite fluttered in the breeze like a white flag.
Something moved, down on the ground, to his right.
Mikhail gasped, took a backward step, and hit the wall.
A girl in a tawny robe stood about thirty feet away, on the far side of the fountain.
She was older than Alizia had been, probably fifteen or sixteen. Her long blond hair hung over her shoulders, and she stared at Mikhail with ice-blue eyes for a few seconds; then, without speaking, she glided to the fountainТs rim, bent down, and pressed her mouth to the water. Mikhail heard her tongue lapping. She glanced up again, warily, before she resumed her drinking. Then she wiped her mouth with her forearm, swept her golden tresses out of her face, and straightened up from the fountain. She turned away and began walking back to the portal Mikhail had come through.
УWait!Ф he called. She didnТt. She disappeared into the white palace.
Mikhail was alone again. He must still be asleep, he thought. A dream had just walked through his field of vision and returned into slumber. But the throbbing pain at his shoulder was real enough, and so was the deep ache of other bruises. His memoriesЧthose, too, were terribly real. And so, he decided, must be the girl.
He crossed the overgrown garden, careful step by step, and went back into the palace.
The girl was nowhere to be seen. УHello!Ф he called, standing in a long corridor. УWhere are you?Ф No answer. He walked away from the room in which heТd awakened. He found other rooms, high-ceiling vaults, most of them without furniture, some with crudely fashioned wooden tables and benches. One chamber seemed to be a huge dining hall, but lizards scampered over pewter plates and goblets that had lain long unused. УHello!Ф he kept calling, his voice becoming feeble as his strength quickly gave out. УI wonТt hurt you!Ф he promised.
He turned into another hallway, this one dark and narrow, lying toward the center of the palace. Water dripped from the damp stones, and green moss had caught hold on the walls, floor, and ceiling. УHello!Ф Mikhail shouted; his voice cracked. УWhere are you?Ф
УRight here,Ф came the reply, from behind him.
He whirled around, his heart slamming, and pressed himself against the wall.
The speaker was a slender man with pale brown, gray-streaked hair and a scraggly beard. He wore the same kind of tawny robe the blond girl had worn; an animal skin, scrubbed of its hair. УWhatТs all this noise about?Ф the man asked, with a hint of irritation.
УIЕ I donТt knowЕ whereЕ I am.Ф
УYouТre with us,Ф he answered, as if that explained everything.
Someone came up behind the man and touched his shoulder. УThis is the new child, Franco,Ф a woman said. УBe gentle.Ф