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

Fors hesitated on the heights above for several long minutes. There was a forbidding
quality in that tangled wilderness below, a sort of moldy rankness rising on the evening
wind from the hollow which cupped the ruins. Wind, storm and wild animals had had
their way there too long.
On the road to one side was a heap of rusted metal which he thought must be the
remains of a car such as the men of the old days had used for transportation. Even then it
must have been an old one. Because just before the Blow-up they had perfected another
type, with an entirely different propulsion system and non-metallic bodies. Sometimes
Star Men had found those almost intact. He skirted the wreckage and, keeping to the
thread of battered road, went down into the town.
Lura trotted beside him, her head high as she tested each passing breeze for scent.
Quail took flight into the tall grass and somewhere a cock pheasant called. Twice the scut
of a rabbit showed white and clear against the green.
There were flowers in that tangle, defending themselves with hooked thorns, the
twining stems which bore them looped and relooped into barriers he could not crash
through. And all at once the setting sun broke between cloud lines to bring their scarlet
petals into angry life. Insects chirped in the grass. The storm was over.
The travelers pushed through into an open space bordered on all sides by crumbling
mounds of buildings. From somewhere came the sound of water and Fors beat a path
through the rank shrubbery to where a trickle of stream fed a man-made basin.
In the lowlands water must always be suspectтАФhe knew that. But the clear stream
before him was much more appetizing than the musty stuff which had sloshed all day in
the canteen at his belt. Lura lapped it unafraid, shaking her head to free her whiskers from
stray drops. So he dared to cup up a palmful and sip it gingerly.
The pool lay directly before a freak formation of rocks which might have once been
heaped up to form a cave. And the mat of leaves which had collected inside there was
dry. He crept in. Surely there would be no danger in camping here. One never slept in any
of the old houses, of course. There was no way of telling whether the ghosts of ancient
disease still lingered in their rottenness. Men had died from that carelessness. But hereтАФ
in among the leaves he saw white bones. Some other hunterтАФa four-footed oneтАФhad
already dined.
Fors kicked out the refuse and went prospecting for wood not too sodden to burn.
There were places in and among the clustered rocks where winds had piled branches and
he returned to the cave with one, then two, and finally three armloads, which he piled
within reaching distance.
Out in the plains fire could be an enemy as well as a friend. A carelessly tended blaze
in the wide grasslands might start one of the oceans of flame which would run for miles
driving all living things before it. And in an enemy's country it was instant betrayal. So
even when he had his small circle of sticks in place Fors hesitated, flint and steel in hand.
There was the mysterious hunterтАФwhat if he were lurking now in the maze of the ruined
town?
Yet both he and Lura were chilled and soaked by the rain. To sleep cold might mean
illness to come. And, while he could stomach raw meat when he had to, he relished it
broiled much more. In the end it was the thought of the meat which won over his caution,
but even when a tread of flame arose from the center of his wheel of sticks, his hand still
hovered ready to put it out. Then Lura came up to watch the flames and he knew that she
would not be so at her ease if any danger threatened. Lura's eyes and nose were both
infinitely better than his own.
Later, simply by freezing into a hunter's immobility by the pool, he was able to knock
over three rabbits. Giving Lura two, he skinned and broiled the third. The setting sun was