"Norton, Andre - No night without stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Andre Norton)

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Norton - No Night Without StarseVersion 3.1 - see revision notes at end of text


NO NIGHT WITHOUT STARS


by
Andre Norton




PAGINATION

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The thick plume of the greasy-looking black smoke rising from beyond the ridge
was warning enough. Sander slipped off Rhin, crept up-slope, his mount padding
behind him with the same caution. They had seen no campsite for days, and the
provision bag, still knotted to the pad strapped about Rhin, was empty. Hunger
was a discomfort within Sander. This land had been singularly empty of game for
the past twenty-four hours. And a handful or two of grain, pulled, barely ripe,
out of a straggle of stalks, was far from filling.
Five days ago Sander had passed the boundaries of the territory known to Jak's
Mob. When he had ridden out of the ring of tents, blackly bitter at his
treatment, he had swung due east, heading for the legendary sea. Then it had
seemed possible that he could achieve his purpose--to find the ancient secrets
whereby he could better forge the metal brought by Traders, so that, upon his
return, he could confront Ibbets and the others and force from them an
acknowledgment that he was not an apprentice of little worth, but a smith of the
Old Learning. This long trek through a wilderness he did not know had taught him
caution, though it had not yet dampened the inner core of his rebellion against
Ibbet's belittling decision.
Now he wedged his shoulders between two rocks, pulling his hood well down over
his face so that its gray color would blend well with the stones about. Though
he was no hunter by training, each member of the Mob was lessoned from childhood
in the elements of hiding-out when confronted by the unusual, until he could
make very sure there was no danger ahead.
Below lay a wide valley down which a river angled. And where that opened into a
much larger bowl of water (of which he could see only one shoreline, the one
into which the river cut), there stood a collection of buildings, a small
village. Those log-walled shelters appeared to be permanent, not like the hide
tents of the Mob that were easily moved from one place to another. However,
small sullen tongues of fire now showed here and there, threatening complete