"The Soul Empty Ones" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

Falon squirmed and worked his jaw in anger. He was angry with both of them. His father had been a good man and a strong warrior; but Falon wondered if the way of obedience was any holier than the other ways. The Natani had no high regard for it. Ea-Daner had no father, because the old man had gone away with his war knife when he became a burden on the tribe. But Falon had always obeyed, not out of respect for the law, but out of admiration for the man. He sighed and shrugged.
"Very well, then, Ea-Daner, you shall observe your custom. And I will go with you to the places of the invader."
"You will not fight with the sons of men!" his father grumbled sullenly. "You will not speak of it again."
Falon's eyes flared heatedly. "You would let a woman go to be killed and perhaps devoured by the invaders?"
"She is a Natani. And it is the right of the sons of men to do as they will with her, or with us. I even dislike hiding from them. They created our fathers, and they made them so that their children would also be in the image of manЧin spite of the glow-curse that lived in the ground and made the sons of animals unlike their fathers."
"Nevertheless, IЧ"
"You will not speak of it again!"
Falon stared at the angry oldster, whose steely eyes barked commands at him. Falon shivered. Respect for the aged was engrained in the fibers of his being. But Daner's death was fresh in his mind. And he was no longer in the valleys of his people, where the invaders had landed their skyboats. Was the way of the tribe more important than the life of the tribe? If one believed in the godsЧthen, yes.

Taking a deep breath, Falon stood up. He glanced down at the old man. The steel-blue eyes were biting into his face. Falon turned his back on them and walked slowly across the room. He sat beside the girl and faced his father calmly. It was open rebellion.
"I am no longer a man of the valley," he said quietly. "Nor am I to be a Natani," he added for the benefit of the girl. "I shall have no ways but the ways of embracing the friend and killing the enemy."
"Then it is my duty to kill my son," said the scarred warrior. He came to his feet and drew his war knife calmly.
Falon sat frozen in horror, remembering how the old man had wept when the invaders took Falon's mother to their food pens. The old one advanced, crouching slightly, waiting briefly for his son to draw. But Falon remained motionless.
"You may have an instant in which to draw," purred the oldster. "Then I shall kill you unarmed."
Falon did nothing. His father lunged with a snarl, and the knife's steel sang a hissing arc. Its point dug into the stool where the youth had been sitting. Falon stood crouched across the room, still weaponless. The girl watched with a slight frown.
"So, you choose to flee, but not fight," the father growled.
Falon said nothing. His chest rose and fell slowly, and his eyes flickered over the old one's tough and wiry body, watching for muscular hints of another lunge. But the warrior was crafty. He relaxed suddenly, and straightened. Reflexively, Falon mirrored the sudden unwinding of tension. The elder was upon him like a cat, twining his legs about Falon's, and encircling his throat with a brawny arm.
Falon caught the knife-thrust with his forearm, then managed to catch his father's wrist. Locked together, they crashed to the floor. Falon felt hot hate panting in his face. His only desire was to free himself and flee, even to the forest.
They struggled in silence. With a strength born of the faith that a man must be stronger than his sons, the elder pressed the knife deeper toward Falon's throat. With a weakness born of despair, Falon found himself unable to hold it away. Their embrace was slippery with wetness from the wound in his forearm. And the arm was failing.
"I . . . offer you . . . as a holy . . . sacrifice," panted the oldster, as the knife began scratching skin.
"Father . . . don'tЧ" Then he saw Ea-Daner standing over the old man's shoulder. She was lifting a war club. He closed his eyes.
The sharp crack frightened and sickened him. The knife clattered away from his throat, and his father's body went limp.
Slowly, he extricated himself from the tangle, and surveyed the oldster's head. The scalp was split, and the gray hair sogging with slow blood.
"You killed him!" he accused.
The girl snorted. "He's not dead. I didn't hit him hard. Feel his skull. It's not broken. And he's breathing."
Falon satisfied himself that she spoke the truth. Then he climbed to his feet, grumbling unhappily. He looked down at the old man and deeply regretted his rebelliousness. The father's love of the law was greater than his love for a son. But there was no undoing it now. The elder was committed to kill him, even if he retracted. He turned to the girl.
"I must go before he comes to his senses," he murmured sadly. "You'll tend his head wound?"
She was thoughtful for a moment, then a speculative gleam came into her eyes. "I understood you meant to help me avenge my husband?"
Falon frowned. "I now regret it."
"Do the valley folk treat their own word with contempt?"
Falon shrugged guiltily. "I'm no longer of the valley. But I'll keep my word, if you wish." He turned away and moved to the window to watch the bonfires. "I owe you a life," he murmured. "Perhaps Daner would have returned alive, if I had accompanied him. I turned against my father too late."
"No, Soul-Falon, I knew when Daner left that he meant to fight until he was no longer ableЧthen drag himself back for the forests. If you had gone too, it would have been the same. I no longer weep, because I knew."
Falon was staring at her peculiarly. "You called me Soul-Falon," he said wonderingly; for it was a title given only to those who had won high respect, and it suggested the impossibleЧthat the Soul-Empty One was really a man. Was she mocking him? "Why do you call me that?" he asked suspiciously.
The girl's slender body inclined in a slight bow. "You ex-changed your honor for a new god. What greater thing can a man offer than honor among his people?"
He frowned for a moment, then realized she meant it. Did the Natani hold anything above honor? "I have no new gods," he growled. "When I find the right god, I shall serve him. But until then, I serve myselfЧand those who please me."
The old man's breathing became a low moan. He was beginning to come awake. Falon moved toward the door.
"When he awakes, he may be so angry that he forgets he's your guest," warned the young warrior. "You'd better come with me."
She hesitated. "The law of mourning states that a widow must remainЧ"
"Shall I call you Soul-Ea?"
She suffered an uncomfortable moment, then shrugged, and slipped a war knife in her belt thong. Her sandals padded softly after him as he moved out into the darkness and untethered the horses. The steeds' legs were still wrapped in heavy leather strips to protect them against the slashing fangs of the wild dogs.
"Leave Daner's horse for your father," said the girl with unsentimental practicality. "The mare's tired, and she'll be slow if he tries to follow us."

They swung into the small rawhide saddles and trotted across the clearing. Dim moonlight from a thin silver crescent illuminated their way. Two trails led from the hut that overlooked the cliff. Falon knew that one of them wound along the clifftops to a low place, then turned back beneath the cliff and found its way eventually to the valley. The other penetrated deeper into the mountains. He had given his word, and he let the girl choose the path.
She took the valley road. Falon sighed and spurred after her. It was sure death, to approach the invader's camp. They had the old god-weapons, which would greet all hostile attacks from the Soul-Empty Ones. And if the Empties came in peace, the sons of men would have another occupant for their stock pens. He shivered slightly. According to the old writings, men had been kindly to-ward their artificial creatures. They created them so that the glow-curse that once lived in the earth would not cause their children to be born as freaks. And they had left Earth to the Empties, promising that they would come again, when the glow-curse passed away.
He remembered Daner's words. And Dauer was right, for Falon had also caught glimpses of the invaders before he fled the valley. They were no longer men, although they looked as if they had once been human. They were covered with a thick coat of curly brown hair, but their bodies were spihdly and weak, as if they had been a long time in a place where there was no need for walking. Their eyes were huge, with great black pupils; and they blinked irritably in the bright sunlight. Their mouths were small and delicate, but set with four sharp teeth in front, and the jaws were strongЧfor ripping dainty mouthfuls of flesh.
They had landed in the valley more than a month earlierЧwhile a red star was the morning star. Perhaps it was an omen, he thoughtЧand perhaps they had been to the red star, for the old writings said that they had gone to a star to await the curse's lifting. But in the valley, they were building a city. And Falon knew that more of them were yet to comeЧfor the city was large, while the invaders were few.
"Do you think, Ea-Daner," he asked as they rode, "that the invaders really own the world? That they have a right to the landЧand to us?"
She considered it briefly, then snorted over her shoulder. "They owned it once, Falon. My grandfather believed that they cursed it themselves with the glow-curse, and that it drove them away. How do they still own it? But that is not a worry for me. If they were gods of the gods, I should still seek the blood that will pay for Daner's."
He noticed that the grief in her voice had changed to a cool and deadly anger. And he wondered. Did the alchemy of Natani custom so quickly change grief into rage?
"How long were you Daner's woman?" he asked.