"S. M. Stirling - Draka 05 - Drakas!" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

luck this business would be over soon; and then back to the post and a sensible settled adjutant's life,
never again to trouble Cohortarch Heimbach with requests for patrol duty. . . .

But in the middle of the night he woke to the shouts of men and the screams of horses and a loud dry
crackling roar that he recognized even before his eyes opened and saw the licking red-orange glow
against the night. "Fire," a man yelled, and another, "Brush fire, Goddamn тАФ" and then Shaw's bellow:
"The horses! See to the horses!"

Too late, though, for that; as Custer fought free of the blanket and got to his feet he could see the horses
silhouetted against the wavering wall of flame, rearing and pawing the air and lunging against the picket
ropes, shrieking in pain and fear. Black shapes of men moved among them, trying to grab them and lead
them away, but the beasts were too far gone in the blind brainless panic of their kind, and the fire was
already on top of them. First one horse and then another broke free and charged away into the dark;
then here they all came in a rumbling rush, while men sprinted to get out of the way.

A horse went by dragging a man, his arm apparently tangled in the broken tether rope; in the flickering
light Custer recognized Decurion Shaw, his mouth open in a high agonized yell that died away as the
horse dragged him off into the night.

The fire was coming right through camp now, flames leaping up high as a man's head, the dry tall grasses
blazing up with almost explosive speed. "To the rock," Custer shouted, but it was an unnecessary
command; the men were already scrambling hastily atop the rock outcrop, coughing and cursing and
slapping out smoldering patches on their clothes.

Custer hurried after them, grabbing up his gunbelt and his hat and boots. Clambering sockfooted up the
steep side of the outcrop, he slipped and almost lost his balance. But then Luther Boss's voice said,
"Here," and a big hand pulled him upward, and a moment later he was standing on top of the rock,
staring disbelievingly out over the blazing desert. All around the rock the thornbush clumps were starting
to catch fire, with a crackling sound like an old man's dry hating laughter.
***

Later, when the worst of the fire had passed, Custer did a quick headcount. Three men were missing:
Trooper Mizell, who had been on sentry duty, and another man named Butler, and of course Decurion
Shaw.

Butler they found first, next morning, though it was not easy to identify him. His clothing had been mostly
burned away and his face and body were blackened. His left leg stuck out at an unnatural angle. "Broken
leg," Luther Boss said after a quick examination. "Probably got run over by a horse, couldn't get clear in
time. Like as not the smoke got him before the fire did."

Mizell had fallen on a relatively bare patch of earth; the fire had hardly touched him, except to smudge
his face a little, and to singe the feathers off the tiny arrow that protruded from the small of his back.

"God-damned murdering little sand monkeys," Pace said. "It was them set the fire, too, wudn't it?"

"Almost certainly," Luther Boss agreed.

As the sun climbed into the sky they fanned out across the flat, searching for the horses. It was a
hopeless job; even Ubi and Jonas couldn't find trails across that charred and still-smoking ground. They
did find Decurion Shaw, half a mile or so from the waterhole, his right arm almost severed at the wrist.