"Andre Norton - Darkness and Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

beneath the rage Fors grasped another emotionтАФalmost fear. The big cat had come
across something strange and therefore suspect. Aroused by her message Fors lowered
himself over the edge of the gully. Lura made no attempt to stop him. Whatever had
troubled her was gone, but he was determined to see what traces it might have left in its
passing.
The greenish stones of the river bank were sleek and slippery with spray, and twice he
had to catch hurriedly at bushes to keep from falling into the stream. He got to his hands
and knees to move across one rock and then he was at the edge of the bush which had
fluttered.
A red pool, sticky but already being diluted by the rain and the spray, filled a clay
hollow. He tasted it with the aid of a finger. Blood. Probably that of the deer they had
been following.
Then, just beyond, he saw the spoor of the hunter that had brought it down. It was
stamped boldly into the clay, deeply as if the creature that made it had balanced for a
moment under a weight, perhaps the body of the deer. And it was too clear to mistake the
outlineтАФthe print of a naked foot.
No man of the Eyrie, no Plainsman had left that track! It was narrow and the same
width from heel to toeтАФas if the thing which had left it was completely flat-footed. The
toes were much too long and skeleton-thin. Beyond their tips were indentations ofтАФnot
nailsтАФbut what must be real claws!
Fors' skin crawled. It was unhealthyтАФthat was the word which came into his mind as
he stared at the track. He was gladтАФand then ashamed of that same gladnessтАФthat he
had not seen the hunter in person.
Lura pushed past him. She tasted the blood with a dainty tongue and then lapped it
once or twice before she came on to inspect his find. Again flattened ears and wrinkled,
snarling lips gave voice to her opinion of the vanished hunter. Fors strung his bow for
action. For the first time the chill of the day struck him. He shivered as a flood of water
spouted at him over the rocks.
With more caution they went back up the slope. Lura showed no inclination to follow
any trail the unknown hunter might have left and Fors did not suggest it to her. This wild
world was Lura's real home and more than once the life of a Star Man had depended upon
the instincts of his hunting cat. If Lura saw no reason to risk her skin downriver, he
would abide by her choice.
They came back to the road. But now Fors used hunting craft and the trail-covering
tricks which normally one kept only for the environs of a ruined cityтАФthose haunted
places where death still lay in wait to strike down the unwary. It had stopped raining but
the clouds did not lift.
Toward noon he brought down a fat bird Lura flushed out of a tangle of brush and
they shared the raw flesh of the fowl equally.
It was close to dusk, shadows falling early because of the storm, when they came out
upon a hill above the dead village the old road served.

2
Into the Midst of Yesterday
Even in the pre-Blow-up days when it had been lived in, the town must have been
neither large nor impressive. But to Fors, who had never before seen any buildings but
those of the Eyrie, it was utterly strange and even a bit frightening. The wild vegetation
had made its claim and moldering houses were now only lumps under the greenery. One
water-worn pier at the edge of the river which divided the town marked a bridge long
since fallen away.