"Dennis L. McKiernan - Mithgar - Eye of the Hunter" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKiernan Dennis L)

silence. Past fallen timber and hollow logs fared the two, Black stopping
to sniff out scents now and again, then running to catch up to Gwylly,
circling about, pausing long enough for a pat before trotting on.
At last they broke from the woods and there before them rose the
fertile upland, where stood the homestead of Orith and Nelda. In the
distance Gwylly could see the farmhouse, smoke rising lazily from the
chimney and up into the blue sky above.
They scrambled down a creek embankment and splashed across,
clambering up the opposite side to come to the grassland sloping
upward. Then Black took off running, racing up the long slope, the wind
in his whiskers, Gwylly running behind.
Black of course was first home, racing joyously about the yard,
yelping in victory, as Gwylly, laughing, ran beyond him and to the porch.
Banging in through the door, "I'm home!" called Gwylly,
unnecessarily, both he and Black making for the kitchen, whence came
the smell of baking. Entering the cookery, the Warrow unslung the birds
from his shoulder and cast them upward to the tabletop. And turning
toward him from the woodstove, his foster mother, Nelda, greeted him
with a smile, the Human female pleased to see her wee buccan son.



After taking a drink from the dipper, Gwylly poured some water into
a bowl for Black. "Where's Dad?" asked Gwylly, panting, the dog
lapping water and panting too.
"In the field," answered Nelda. "His lunch is nearly ready."
"I've got to dress these birds first," said Gwylly, "but then I could
take his meal to him."
Nelda smiled and nodded, and Gwylly caught up the birds and
stepped outside, Black following.
The Woman watched him go, her heart content. Nelda turned once
more to the woodstove and began stirring the contents of a pot, her
thoughts elsewhere.
Gwylly was her joy, for he had come to her some twenty-two years
past, in a dark hour of despair, after she had miscarried for the third
and, as it turned out, final time. She had been alone the night she had lost
the baby, for Orith had gone to Stonehill nearly two weeks past to trade
grain and beets and onions for needed supplies.
The next day, weeping, shovel in hand, she had patted down the last
of the earthen mound marking the tiny new graveтАФthere by the other
two now grown over with wild-flowers and grassтАФwhen she heard
Orith's hail and had turned to see the mules and waggon drawing nigh.
But wonder of wonders, Orith had had with him a wounded Warrow
child, a tiny thing, three or four years old, no more, an ugly gash across
his head. Feverish had been the babe, and calling out for his dam, for his
sire. Nelda had taken up the wee one, bearing him inside. His parents
had been slain, Orith told her, R├╗ck raid or the like. Killed them down
on the Crossland Road 'tween Beacontor and Stonehill, looting their
campsite, stripping their bodies, stealing their ponies. The wee one had
been left for dead amid the wreckage where Orith found him.