"Joel Rosenberg - Hour of the Octopus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

Arefai drew his bow back to a light extension, where the bowstring touched the gold ring on the
arrow. I pulled mine back all the way, to where the head of the arrow al-most touched the bowstring. He
was a warrior and I was just a newly made bourgeois, but I had spent most of my life as an acrobat, and
there's something about tumbling, highwire, and flying that does give you a lot of physical strength, even
more than that of somebody who spends his days chopping warriors and peasants into a fine puree.
But something about his stance impressed me. It took me a moment to realize that the only tension
was in his arms and shoulders, that the muscles not involved in draw-ing the bow were loose and relaxed.
I didn't have the slightest idea whether or not that helped with shooting, but I liked the look of it, of taut
shoulders and forearms, right hand held in a clench like the talons of a falcon, the neck relaxed, the set of
the feet easy and flat.
He released his string in a smooth loose, without any pluck. The bow made a deep thrummm, the
bass note of a raw young zivver that hadn't been broken in properly. But a fish leaped from the stream,
its body impaled on the barbs, then flopped down into the water, flibitaflibitaflibit-ting madly up into the
shallow water of the bank.
For a moment, I thought it had dislodged the fishing ar-row, but it was only the loose shaft. The fish
lay on the
bank, anchored by the barbs and the silken cord, its gills slowing opening and closing. There was a
rustle in the bushes beyond the bridge, and a hand quickly reached out to snatch the wooden shaft as it
washed by.
Arefai was waiting for me.
 I had been so impressed with his performance that I had slackened the bowstring and let some fish
slip past me, but I took aim along the shaft and pulled the arrow back to its full extension, trying to stand
tall and easy, just like the warriors did.
I waited until the arrow was lined up with a large fish, and tried to loose the string with one easy
motionтАФ
"Oww!" The bowstring slapped me hard on my bare forearm, abrading flesh just this side of bloody,
while my arrowhead bounced hard off a stone, sending the loose shaft tumbling through the air until it
fetched up in the mud on the edge of the bank.
No fish.
Arefai glared at me. What use are you? he didn't say, so I didn't answer.
Not that I would have. A thick skin behooves us.
The stone path split four ways beyond the stream, each subordinate trail indicated by a small plaque
set into the stone, and by carvings in the stone of the trail: a deer, a snake, a boar, and a dragon. A
flufftailed deer's hoofprints led morningwise, curving back toward the town of Den Oroshtai and the
meandering stream. Twisted indentations marking the surface of the path of the snake pointed a few
grades to the south, toward Stony Buthen; the path of the boar, marked by deep hoofprints, led to the
south and sun-wise.
The path of the dragon, marked only by a cluster of curlicues representing a dragon's breath, led
downslope, almost directly sunwise, disappearing in the trees. Perhaps a slight breeze blew out of the
path, because I smelled something off in the distance, something cold enough to make me shiver.
I don't react to cold too well. "I take it we're not hunt-
ing dragons today," I said, trying for humor. I rubbed at the area where the bowstring had slapped
me. Angrily red, it still hurt.
"That's notтАФ" He looked at me, exasperated. "Ask Narantir sometime about the charms put on the
paths. The path of the deer tends to lead to game for the pot: rabbit, deer, trelinger. The path of the
snake is likely to pass by foreseeable dangerтАФsnakes, pit spider, razorfoot; the path of the boar leads to
proof of bravery: boar, sayтАФand make no mistake, Kami Dan'Shir, there are lions back up in the hills.
"The path of the dragon leads to that best left alone."
I could see the use of the first three. Fairly obvious: members of our beloved ruling class like to kill
their food themselves, hence the path of the deer. They have to prove they're brave, and facing off