"Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 07 - A Wizard In Midgard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

"Every chance!"
"Then I'll straighten the brush so that only a sharp eye will notice it's been
knocked aside. Walk carefully."
Alea watched him for a second, wondering about the readiness of his agreement,
then picked her way over the underbrush, trying not to tread any more down. Gar
moved ahead as she came, until she was past the underbrush and into the
relatively clear land under the shadow of the leaves. "I need a large tree,
lad."
"Really?" Gar looked about. "Larger than these?"
"No, that one will do." Alea went over to an apple tree that must have been at
least fifty years old. She was too tired to wonder what traveler had tossed
aside an apple core in her grandfather's day. She almost asked Gar for a boost
up but caught herself in time, and scolded herself for being so quick to trust.
She wondered why as she climbed.
She settled herself on a limb and glanced down to see Gar, thirty feet from the
tree, staring up at her with anxious eyes. "Don't worry." She untied the rope
from around her waist, cast it about the trunk and caught it, then tied it in
front of her. "I won't fall."
"That can't be very comfortable," Gar said doubtfully. "It's not," she assured
him, "but I'll manage to sleep. I've done it for three days now."
"No wonder you're almost dead on your feet. Why not sleep on a bed of pine
boughs on the ground?"
Instantly, her whole body waked to fight or flee. Was he trying to lure her
down? "There are packs of wild dogs in this wilderness, lad, or so rumor says.
Haven't you seen them?"
"Not yet," Gar said slowly-but what she said made sense. The continent, having
been terraformed and Terran colonized, had no native predators, only breeds of
Terran domestic animals. People who had tired of their pets, or found they
couldn't afford to feed them, had probably taken them out into the country and
abandoned them. Eventually they would have found one another and formed packs.
Farmers would have killed most of them as menaces to the livestock and even
people, but some would have escaped to this buffer zone between kingdoms.
"There are wild pigs, too," she told him, "herds of a dozen or more each, and
the boars have grown tusks."
Reverting to the wild indeed! Gar wondered how the pigs had escaped, but he knew
they were smart animals when they cared to stir themselves. "I can see the
advantage of your tree."
"Not comfortable, but safe," Alea told him.
Gar reflected that she would be safe from predators indeed, would even have some
measure of safety from the twolegged kind-bandits were less likely to notice her
when she was up in a tree, and the height of her perch would give her an
advantage if they started climbing after her.
"Hadn't you better climb up, yourself?" Alea asked.
"No, I think the fire will keep them away," Gar said. "If I see them lurking,
there will be time to climb." He didn't mention that he could make sure pigs and
dogs both stayed away by inserting fearful thoughts into their brains. "Are
there wild cattle, too?"
"Yes, but they'll usually leave you alone if you leave them alone. What if your
fire goes out?"
"It won't, if I tend it." Gar turned away. "First, though, I'll cover our