"Vonda N. McIntyre-Elfleda" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntyre Vonda N)

coupled with the satyr myself, gods help me.
The meadow grass parts before me and the air flows through my mane like water. The birds are silent
in the heat but the cicadas' shrill afternoon song urges me onward. My hooves pound the earth, crushing
flowers, cutting the turf. Sweat sparkles in my eyes. I pull my elbows close to my sides against the pain of
breathing. The air enters in burning gouts. Sweat pours down my chest, breaks out on my flanks, drips
down my legs, and flies from the points of my fetlocks as I run. I feel my buttocks rub the sweat into
white foam.
The meadow ends and I run among rocks. I leap a huge boulder and come down in scree. The valley
narrows, rises, and ends in a sheer wall of stone. I stumble, stop, stand spraddle-legged, knee-locked,
and try only to breathe.
Later I realize I still have a plum in one hand and a peach in the other. The juice, where I clasped the
fruit, runs between my fingers. I tear the pulp with my teeth and swallow it slowly until all that is left are
the seeds. Fruit trees are hybrids; they reproduce only freaks, sports, throwbacks. I fling the seeds
among the jumbled rocks, where they will have no chance to grow.
The sweat dries on me as I plod down the mountain. A dull ache creeps up my near hind leg from the
center of my hoof: I think I have a stone bruise.
Back in the meadow I lie down in deep cool grass. I am never comfortable sleeping now. When I
stand, like a horse, my head droops and I wake with a backache. Lying on my side with my head
pillowed on my arm is awkward, and my hand always goes to sleep.
The shadow of the mountain is creeping over me when I wake. It will be dark soon, and the moon will
be full. I fling out my forelegs and push myself to my feet.
A flash of white among the trees draws my attention.
"Elfleda!"
She stops and turns toward me, tilting her head gracefully to draw the spiral horn from beneath the
branches. She has small breasts and long, strong hands. Human skin blends into animal hide at her navel,
but like the rest of the equiforms she has human sex organs between the beast forelegs. Our owners must
have bred and chosen Elfleda's animal part carefully, for it is both horse and deer, with a musky taint of
goat. She lashes her tail.
"Hello, Achilleus. What do you want?"
"I..." But I want nothing from her that she will give. She is not cruel, only detached. She does not feel
for me and I have no reason or excuse to expect her to.
"They'll come again soon," she says.
"I hope not."
"They will."
"And you'll watch for them."
"Yes," she says. I do not understand, since she can ignore almost all of them, why she does not
disappear into the forest when they come. Instead she watches, and our masters see her and grow
jealous of her freedom. What they give, they can take back.
Elfleda flicks her tail again. The black tip touches the point of her horse-shoulder, her withers, her
flanks. The wind lifts her short fine hair away from her head, away from her back, haloing her in silver
light. I step toward her, and she does not back away. But I am covered with sweat and dust and I smell
like hot horse, hot human. I am embarrassed to approach her like this. She watches me, waiting,
unafraid. She knows she could outrun me if she had to. They made me large, taller than I was in life-- in
real life-- but she is quick and her hooves are sharp; and they did not take away so much of my humanity
that I would force myself on her. That would be bitter love indeed.
"I wasn't thought ugly before --" My voice is querulous. I should not speak to her like this, as if I
would be content if she took me out of pity.
She frowns, then her brow clears and she steps toward me. "If you were, Achilleus, you know it
wouldn't make any difference to me." She reaches out: I can feel the heat of her hand near my face. She
has never touched me before.