"SM Stirling - Change 02 - Scourge of God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

УYes, but then Martin Thurston would have gotten away with it, sure,Ф Rudi Mackenzie pointed out reasonably, scanning the ground ahead with his binoculars. УAnd weТd be leaving an ally of the Prophet here on our way home, and next to our own borders.Ф
The long flatlands to the south were dark as the sun sank westward. Until a few days ago the area had been the borderlands between the United StatesЧthe United States of Boise, to everyone except its inhabitantsЧand New Deseret. Now it was probably the borderland between the US of Boise and the Church Universal and Triumphant, and its Prophet.
УYou mean he hasnТt gotten away with it, then, Chief?Ф Edain enquired sourly. УAnd we arenТt doing just that?Ф
Ah, and itТs a rare comfort you are, my friend,Rudi thought.
Not just the rock-steady readiness; the bantering grumble kept a distance between his mind and the fact that three of their friends were in the hands of an enemy who were no more likely to show mercy than they were to drift upward and migrate south like hummingbirds.
УAh, well, and they do need fighting, to be sure.Ф EdainТs lips tightened. УI saw what they did to those refugees. TheyТll have to account to the Guardians about that . . . and IТm not sorry to send more of them through the Western Gate to do it.Ф
УIt was probably fated that we get mixed up with this,Ф Rudi said. УThe Powers didnТt have a nice straightforward trip East for us in their minds, so.Ф
УAnd they have our friends,Ф Edain said.
Well,Rudi thought.OdardТs a friend ... more or less. IngolfТs a comrade, and Matti is . . . well, IТm not sure, except that I care for her as much as for anyone living whoТs not my mother. ItТs not just that weТre anamchara, either.
He and she had sworn the oath of soul-bonding when they were ten, during the War of the Eye . . . He smiled a little at the memory of their seriousness, and their determination not to let their friendship be broken by the quarrels of their elders. Not that being young made the ritual any less binding . . .
And all of us on this trip are young,he thought, not for the first time.Changelings, or nearly so. For good or ill, the world is passing into our hands.
The two young Mackenzies fell silent, waiting patiently behind their low ridge of sage-grown rock. Rudi raised his head slightly and looked again through the roots of the bush ahead of himЧalways much safer than looking over it. At this angle there was no risk of a flash from the lenses of his field glasses.
HeТd tied back his red-gold hair and wrapped a dark bandana about it, and dabbed his face with dust and soot; his gray-green eyes shone the brighter in the dusk. A few hours of sleep snatched during the sunlight hours had repaired most of the damage of days of fighting and hard riding; heТd recovered with the resilience of youth. HeТd turned twenty-two just this last Yule, in fact; a broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, long-limbed man two inches over six feet, and even stronger than he looked.
Few works of humankind showed, besides the fireless war-camp of the ProphetТs men two miles away. This stretch of the Snake River plain had depended on power-driven pumps before the Change. People had fled or died when the machines failed, and the fields had gone back to sagebrush with thicker lines of scrub and the bleached skeletons of dead trees to mark the sites of homesteads. Crumbled snags of wall still here and there, and the rusted, canted remains of a great circular pivot-irrigation machine, but like most of his generation Rudi usually ignored the ruins of the pre-Change world so thoroughly that he didnТt really see them, unless there was some immediate practical reason to give them thought.
The air smelled dry, of dust and sage, and hot even though the temperature was falling as quickly as the sun. The first few stars glimmered through the purple eastward. Rudi pulled a Mackenzie-style travelerТs cake out of his sporran, broke it in half and handed the other part to Edain; they both munched stolidly, though the pressed mass of rolled oats and honey and nuts and bits of dried fruit tasted of nothing but a vague sweetness now. They might need the energy soon. Edain threw some of his to the big shaggy half-mastiff bitch that lay near him; GarbhТs jaws clamped down on it with a wetclomp , followed by smacking and slurping as she struggled to get at bits that stuck to her great yellow fangs.
Then they waited through to full dark, now and then tensing muscle against muscle to keep themselves supple without the need to get up and stretch; both young men had learned the trick of it and much else from EdainТs father . . . and Aylward the Archer had been First Armsman of Clan Mackenzie for nearly two decades, and a sergeant in the Special Air Service Regiment before the Change.
There was a three-quarter moon, and the stars were very bright in the clear dry air. An owl hooted, and a jackrabbit scuttered through the ground-cover. Garbh raised her barrel-shaped head from her paws, black nose wrinkling at something she sensed but couldnТt place. The samesomething brought RudiТs head up, and he put his hand on the wire-and-leather wound grip of his longsword. Edain began to draw his bow, his gray eyes darting about for a target.
УWeТre coming in,Ф someone said quietly out in the dimness; a womanТs voice.
Rudi relaxed, and let the sword slide back the finger-span heТd drawn, with a slightsnick of metal on metal as the guard kissed the scabbard-mouth.
УThe farmerТs child breathes so loud we could have shot him in the dark,Ф she went on, still speaking softly but not whisperingЧwhispers carried.
Edain bristled: УChildyourselves,Ф he muttered. УYouТre Changelings too, and not much older than I am!Ф
Hewas nineteen and hewas a farmer, but also an experienced hunter of deer and elk, boar and cougar, of tigers and sometimes of men, and heТd carried away the Silver Arrow at the Lughnasadh games twice; once heТd been younger than any champion had before. His father had taught the whole Clan the art of the bow.
УYou two might as well have been playing the bagpipes,Ф another soprano added.
At least theyТre speaking English instead of Elvish,Rudi thought with resignation.When they insist on Sindarin . . . thereТs no better language for being insufferable in, and the Lord and Lady knowMary and Ritva are experts at insufferability anyway.
The twins came in, shaggy in their war cloaks of mottled dark green canvas covered in loops stuck with bits of grass and sagebrush. Rudi had to admit they were invisible until they wanted to be seen. He was a very good scout himself; the twins were veryvery good, able to crawl to within touching distance of alert, war-wise men. If they had time enough, and sometimes it could take days.
They were also identicals, tall young women lithe as cats, their yellow hair caught up in tight fighting braids under knitted caps of dark gray wool. The faces below the hoods of the war cloaks were oval and high-cheeked and their slightly tilted eyes cornflower blue, capable of a most convincing imitation of guileless innocence.
In truth his half sisters reminded him of cats in more ways than one, including an occasional disconcerting capacity for cool wickedness. TheyТd also, in his opinion, spent far too much time in Aunt AstridТs little kingdom in the woods, listening to her bards recite from those books she insisted on callingthe histories , and talking in a language invented by a long-dead Englishman. Not that they werenТt great stories, but the way the D·nedain carried on, youТd think they were as true as Tсin Bє C·ailnge.
Everyone worked their way backwards until they were well below the crest of the low ridge, and then Ritva went down on one knee and smoothed a patch of dirt. There was enough starlight and moonlight to make out the diagram she drew.
УTheir horses are rested now; thereТs good water there, if you donТt mind hauling it up on along rope, probably four or five saddle lariats linked together. It looks like theyТre going to have a quick cold dinner, give the horses the last of their feed pellets and then ride east in the darkness, to get past the Boise pickets.Ф
Rudi nodded. The Church Universal and Triumphant had pushed an army into the territory claimed by the United StatesЧthe one head-quartered at BoiseЧand gotten beaten rather comprehensively. But President-General Thurston had been killed in the fightЧby his own eldest son, Martin, whoТd been conspiring with the CUT. He hadnТt liked his fatherТs plan to finally call elections, and to keep his own children from running for the office. Now he was lord of Boise . . . and Rudi and his friends were the only ones who knew the real story.
And in the meantime, we have a problem that isnТt politics,Rudi thought.Namely, how to get Ingolf and Matti and Odard free.
Or it wasnТt entirely politics. If you had the rightЧor wrongЧparents, the way he and Matti had, everything you did was politics. And whoever did it, fighting wasalways about politics, whether it was this or an Assembly of the Clan shouting and waving their arms or two rams butting heads in a meadow; heТd grown up the ChiefТs son and absorbed that through his pores.
УSentries?Ф he asked.
УMounted,Ф Mary said.
And I know itТs you, Mary,he thought; they did that verbal back-and-forth thing to confuse people, but he could tell their voices apart.And your faces. Well, usually.
УSo much for a bit of quiet Sentry Removal as a solution to that little problem weТre havinТ,Ф Edain added. УGetting our friends out, that is.Ф
The twins nodded soberly, not rising to the slight edge in his voice; it was too obviously true. A mounted man wasnТt as good a sentry as someone on foot and hidingЧmuch harder to miss and easier to avoid. Unfortunately they were also a lot harder to take out so quietly that nobody noticed. Killing a man silently was hard enough; doing the same to an animal as big and well constructed as a horse was much more so. Doing both together . . .
When problems that involved fighting came up, the Rangers were extremely good at sneaky, underhanded,elegant solutions. AstridЧtheHiril D·nedain, the Lady of the RangersЧconsidered straight-ahead bashingcrude . Sentry Removal was one of the D·nedain specialties. Sometimes elegance bought you no lard to fry your spuds, though.
УWhere, what pattern, and how many all up?Ф he asked briskly.
УTheyТve got pairs riding in a figure-eight pattern; eight on the move at any one time. ThereТs thirty more of them altogether, with that party that came in this afternoon, the ones who had Mathilda and Odard and his man Alex.Ф
УAbout half of them are wounded,Ф Ritva said, taking up the tale; then she grimaced slightly. УAnd weТre not counting the six who were too badly wounded to ride fast or fight.Ф
УTheir officers killed them?Ф Rudi asked.The Cutters certainly seem ruthless enough for that.
УNo, they killed the badly injured horses. The men killed themselves,Ф Mary said flatly. УNo argument about it, either. They were singing until the knives went in. Something aboutbright lifestreams. Ф
УAnd sure, Ingolf said that the Sword of the Prophet were . . . serious men,Ф Rudi said. УEverything IТve seen bears it out. And our folk?Ф
УMathilda and Odard here,Ф Ritva said, tapping her finger at the sand-map. УTheyТre lightly bound, wrist and ankle, except when they let them up to go to the slit trench. DoesnТt look like theyТre hurt at all, beyond some bruises; they havenТt even taken their hauberks off. OdardТs man Alex isnТt confined at all. But Ingolf . . .Ф She hesitated.
УBad?Ф Rudi asked, frowning.
HeТd grown to like the big Easterner; heТd been a good comrade on the trail, a notable fighting man even by RudiТs exacting standards, and with a breadth of experience in many lands that the Mackenzie secretly envied. Also heТd been a captive of the Church Universal and Triumphant before, and escaped.
УTheyТve got him in a tight triple yoke, and chains on his ankles.Ф
Rudi hissed slightly. A triple yoke was a beam of wood with steel circles set in it for neck and wrists; they could be arranged so that it needed continuous effort to keep the collar from choking you and you were never able to take a full breath. Pendleton slavers and other people of low morals and no scruples used them to break the spirit of captives. They were excruciatingly uncomfortable to start with, quickly grew into outright agony, and they made it impossible to really sleep, while the victim could still walk . . . if you beat them with a whip. Still, Ingolf was a strong man in heart and body both, and heТd been in it for less than two full days. Their plan required all the captives to be fully mobile if it was going to work.
УChief?Ф Edain said.