"Andre Norton - Brother To Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

tended to block the doorway.

"I claim traveler's right supplies," the young man stated firmly.

"You will get them!" The priest seized upon one of the boys just returning for another
load. "Bring forth that prepared for this one. Then get you forth, cursed one."

The Brother ducked within and returned in a moment with a shoulder pack, a very small
one, lacking much, Jofre thought, of what he would really need. Yet the Shagga had
obeyed the letter of the law and if he protested, it would achieve nothing but to render
him less in the eyes of these who had so recently been his oathed Brothers.

He took up the pack which had been tossed contemptuously in his direction and, without
a word, turned and went toward the wide open gate in the wall. In that last meeting with
the Master he had memorized from the map the route he must take. Of his destination he
knew only what he had learned by study and by listening to the talk of the traders who
now and then visited the Lair.

There was a road of sorts. However, that followed a winding way and he would lose time.
By the heft of the pack he had little in the way of supplies. Though the Brothers were
trained to live off the land, this was the beginning of the cold season and much which
could be converted to food would be hard to find. The herbs were frost burnt and dead;
the small animals had mainly retreated to burrows. It was at least ten days travel on foot
before he would reach farming land and then he must be wary of attempting to obtain
supplies. The Brothers were feared by commoners. A Brother alone might well be fair
game. No, it would be better to strike straight over the Pass of the Kymer, if that was not
snow choked by an early storm. In a way he would thus be seeking out his own roots, as
it was on the slope of the Ta-Kymer that the escapeboat in which he had been found had
made a crash landing.

Jofre did not turn and look back at the only home he could remember. Instead he centered
all his concentration on what lay before him, marshaling all strengths to face the
mountain path.

The Shagga priest stood in the middle of that narrow room which had been his own
quarters at the Lair. There were blanks of lighter strips on the wall where the rolls of the
WORDS OF SKAG had been hung only moments earlier. All his belongings were
enwrapped in weather-resistant orff skin bags to wait by the door.

He plucked at his lower lip as was his habit in thought, though there was so little skin to
be gathered there.

Outside the narrow slit of window the pale sun was being cloud hidden. A storm, early in
the season, that might most easily answer his problem. But no man could count on the
whims of nature. It was best to cover all possible points in planning an attack.

There was one other object there in the room. A cage in which a black blot huddled. The
priest went to haul out that occupant. He held something which was neither bird nor
mammal but a combination of both and faintly repulsive. The thing expanded leathery
wings, releasing more of its disgusting, musty body odor.