"Andre Norton - WW - Secrets 03 - The Warding of Witch World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

the rude cart protested from time to rime with a bellow.

Josephinia! But Destree had meant to deliver the potion herself to the farm. Trimble, the woman's
husband, tramped beside the work beast, prod ready in hand. But there also swung from his belt an axe,
the edge of which gleamed after a fresh sharpening. And coming behind, bows in hand, watching alertly
from side to side, were Stanwryk and Foss, the two most expert hunters of the valley.

The small procession took on, as it emerged from the curtaining wood, the appearance of
travelers abroad in perilous country.

Destree was already hurrying to meet them.

"What is to do?" Her early morning premonition was now well enforced.

"Woods monster, Voice." Trimble's voice raised to out rumble the cart. There came a whimper,
half pain, and half fear, from his wife bundled between rolls of blankets.

"Aye." Stanwryk pushed forward eagerly. "Last night, Labert o' th' Mill -- he heard his sheep in
a pother an' loosed Tightjaw. There is nothing living in the valley willin' to stand up to that hound, as you
well know, Voice. Only then there came such a screeching an' to-do that Labert took to his house an'
barred his door. This morning..." He paused his spill of words and Foss took up the tale. He was always
a man of few words, but today he was freer of speech than Destree had ever heard him.

"First light come and Labert was out -- had his bow, he did, an' his grandsire's sword. In th'
graze land over th' mill -- a dead sheep, more than half eaten -- an'--

Stanwryk demanded his chance again. "Tightjaw -- that hound was torn in two -- torn in two,
I'm sayin' an' I seed th' body for me-self! Just like he was no more than a rabbit under the' wolf's teeth.
An' that was not all, Voice. There was tracks, mind you -- an' they warn't made by no hill cat nor bear.
They was like a man's -- but a man with twice the length of foot of Trimble here."

Trimble clumped forward a step or so. "Voice, since we was children, our paps and mams, afore
us, we have heard tales of creatures of th' Dark who hunt an' savage all true men. This here shrine of th'
Lady, why, 'tis said it was set right here that there be a strong place of Light against the Dark from the
north. But this here night thing which has come upon us, truly it be of the Dark, an' we asks you, Voice,
call now upon th' Lady that She may hold us under Her cloak."

"Yes," Destree said.

How well she knew that things of evil could wander far. Her body tensed. Had she not fought
with one remnant of the Black Power -- that which was set to swallow the crews of ships it captured,
even from other worlds than that of Estcarp? Had another gate gone wild -- activated in some fashion so
that it had provided a doorway for a thing from an entirely different world? Or had some skulking
monstrous creature come prowling far south to establish for itself new hunting grounds? She must
somehow discover which and what they faced. For these people of the valley had no defenses against
any strong manifestation of the Dark.

Did she -- ? Her hand went to her amulet. She had the Lady, and promises between them would
hold until the world's end.