"Vance, Jack - Planet of Adventure 01 - City of the Chasch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Traz led the way around the bog, taking pains to conceal the signs of their passage, doubling back, swinging across a twenty-foot finger of black muck on a hanging branch, climbing another tree, letting it bend beneath his weight to carry him sixty feet away to the opposite side of a dense clump of reeds. Reith followed each of his ploys. The voices of the Emblem warriors were now clearly audible.

Traz and Reith reached the edge of the river, a slow-flowing flood of black-brown water. Traz found a raft of driftwood, dead lianas, humus, held together by living reeds. He pushed it off into the stream. Then he and Reith hid in a nearby clump of reeds. Five minutes passed; four of the Emblem Men came crashing through the bog along their trail, followed by a dozen more, with catapults at the ready. They ran to the river's edge, pointed to the marks where Traz had dislodged the raft, searched the face of the river. The mass of floating vegetation had drifted almost two hundred yards downstream and was being carried by a swirl in the current to the other bank. The Emblems gave cries of fury, turned and raced at top speed through the murk and tangle, along the bank toward the drifting raft.

"Quick," whispered Traz. "They won't be fooled long. We'll go back along their tracks."

Back away from the river, across the bog and once more into the forest, Traz and Reith ran, the calls and shouts at first receding to the side, then becoming silent, then once again raised in a sound of furious exultation. "They've picked up our trail once again," gasped Traz. "They'll be coming on leap-horses; we'll never-" He stopped short, held up his hand, and Reith became aware of the acrid half-sweet fetor once again. "The berl," whispered Traz. "Through here ... Up this tree."

With the survival pack dangling at his back Reith followed the boy up the oily green branches of a tree. "Higher," said Traz. "The beast can lunge high."

The berl appeared: a lithe brown monster with a wicked boar's-head split by a vast mouth. From its neck protruded a pair of long arms terminating in great horny hands which it held above its head. It seemed to be intent on the calls of the warriors and paid no heed to Traz and Reith other than a single swift glance up toward them. Reith thought he had never seen such evil in a face before. "Ridiculous. It's only a beast..."

The creature disappeared through the forest; a moment later the sound of pursuit halted abruptly. "They smell the berl," said Traz. "Let's be off."

They climbed down from the tree, fled to the north. From behind them came yells of horror, a guttural gnashing roar.

"We're safe from the Emblems," said Traz in a hollow voice. "Those who live will depart." He turned Reith a troubled glance. "When they go back to the camp there will be no Onmale. What will happen? Will the tribe die?"

"I don't think so," said Reith. "The magicians will see to that."

Presently they emerged from the forest. The steppe spread flat and empty, drenched in an aromatic honey-colored light. Reith asked, "What is to the west of us?"

"The West Aman and the country of the Old Chasch. Then the Jang Pinnacles. Beyond are the Blue Chasch and the Aesedra Bight."

"To the south?"

"The marshes. The marsh men live there, on rafts. They are different from us: little yellow people with white eyes. Cruel and cunning as Blue Chasch."

"They have no cities?"

"No. There are cities there"-Traz made a gesture generally toward the north-"all ruined. There are old cities everywhere along the steppes. They are haunted, and there are Phung, as well, who live among the ruins."

Reith asked further questions regarding the geography and life of Tschai, to find Traz's knowledge spotty. The Dirdir and Dirdirmen lived beyond the sea; where, he was uncertain. There were three types of Chasch: the Old Chasch, a decadent remnant of a once-powerful race, now concentrated around the Jang Pinnacles; the Green Chasch, nomads of the Dead Steppe; and the Blue Chasch. Traz detested all the Chasch indiscriminately, though he had never seen Old Chasch. "The Green are terrible: demons! They keep to the Dead Steppe. The Emblems stay to the south, except for raids and caravan pillage. The caravan we failed to loot skirted far south to avoid the Greens."

"Where was it bound?"

"Probably Pera, or maybe to Jalkh on the Lesmatic Sea. Most likely Pera. North-South caravans trade between Jalkh and Mazuun. EastWest caravans move between Pera and Coad."

"These are cities where men live?"

Traz shrugged. "Hardly cities. Settled places. But I know little, only what I have heard the magicians say. Are you hungry? I am. Let us eat."

On a fallen log they sat and ate chunks of caked porridge and drank from leather flasks of beer. Traz pointed to a low weed on which grew small white globules. "We'll never starve so long as pilgrim plant grows ... And see yonder black clumps? That is watak. The roots store a gallon of sap. If you drink nothing but watak you become deaf, but for short periods there is no harm."

Reith opened his survival pack: "I can draw water from the ground with this sheet of film, or convert sea-water with this purifier ... These are food pills, enough for a month .... This is an energy cell ... A medical kit ... Knife, compass, scanscope ... . Transcom ..." Reith examined the transcom with a sudden thrill of interest.

"What is that device?" asked Traz.

"Half of a communication system. There was another in Paul Waunder's pack, which went with the space-boat. I can broadcast a signal which will bring an automatic response from the other set and give the other set's location." Reith pushed the Find button. A compass arrow swung to the northwest; a counter flashed a white 6.2 and a red 2. "The other set-and presumably the space-boat-is 6.2 times 10 to the second, or 620 miles northwest."