"Jody Lynn Nye - The Growling" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nye Jody Lynn)

THE GROWLING
Jody Lynn Nye

"You have used up the last of the birch moss, Honi," Dahli
complained, a frown on her heart-shaped face. She tipped up the
earthenware container to prove the truth of its emptiness, then
dropped it to the dirt floor. Her strong hands, more used to clenching
a sword than a broom, clamped down on her hips.

"Why not? My need is the same as anyone else's." Honi pouted,
flexing a bicep until her apron sleeve split, showing her bronzed arm.
In a moment, the shield-sisters might come to blows over an
increasingly petty argument. Their chief flung herself between them.

"Enough!" cried Shooga, her voice filling the small supply hut.
"Peace between you. Since there is not enough birch moss, I order
that you two shall go out and seek more, and furthermore, you shall
not raise your voices again. Now, apologize," she said, patting her
palms against the air as if pushing the two women together. "You are
warriors and sisters in combat!"

Dahli looked at Honi, who eyed her with suspicion.

"I apologize," Honi said at last.

"So do I," Dahli said, tossing back her mane of brown hair. "But
you did use up the moss." Honi's face turned a deeper shade of tan.

"I needed it!"

"And what am I supposed to do? Watch where I sit for a week?"
Dahli breasted up to Honi, her fists clenched. Honi went on guard
with her basket, as if she was about to belabor her shield-sister over
the head with it.

"Girls! Girls!" Shooga shouted, pushing them apart in truth this
time. The warrior women dodged to glare at one another over her
head, making faces. Shooga was fed up with the lot of them. Herback
hurt, too.

The time of the Growling had come again. Thank the Goddesses
such times were rare in the history of the village of Hee Kwal, or
there would be no unity, merely widely spaced houses full of woe.
The fault lay with Mother Nature herself. Women of bearing age had
children, with only a few turns of the moon between birth and
conceiving anew. With men gone so long, though, the last of the
children had been born months ago, leaving wombs idle. It was as if
all the women returned to the time of their earliest nubile season,
before they had bargained between themselves for husbands. As was
the way of the Mother Goddesses during the time of creation, each of