"Karl Edward Wagner - Kane 03 - Bloodstone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

close behind.

Packed loam of the path recorded her pointed hooves but a few steps when a hissing arrow tore through
her ribs. Gasping in agony, the doe staggered, then plunged along the path in blind flight. The fawn
paused only a second before instinctive terror supplanted bewilderment, and on his stilt-like legs he
pounded, after his mother. A chorus of crows caught the scent of blood, of fear, and raised a raucous
protest.

The hunter jumped from his concealment alongside the trail, another arrow nocked and ready. Bounding
onto the gametrail, his patient eyes recognized the stream of blood, and he grinned jubilantly. "Lung at
least--maybe heart, too by the blood! Run while you can, bitch--you won't go far!" He drew a long knife
and followed confidently the glistening trail.

Her hoofprints quickly left the path, but marks of the doe's passage were obvious by the crimson
blotches splashed upon the forest floor. As the hunter surmised, she had not run more than a few hundred
yards before death pulled her down. She lay in a sudden depression in the ground--a cavity ripped from,
the floor a few years earlier when an enormous tree had been uprooted. Her breath rattled now through
red-foamed nostrils, and her eyes seemed already glazed.
 He clambered into the depression gingerly and cut her throat. Wiping the knife across her flank, the
hunter cast about for the fawn. No sign of him. Something would get him by morning, probably, so at
least he would not starve. He felt some slight remorse over killing a doe with fawn, but the day had been
long, and his family in Breimen came first. Besides, he was paid to bring in deer for the market, not to
observe forest idylls.

He sat against the bank with a tired but satisfied grunt, wiped his face on a dirty sleeve, and looked
about him. A minute's rest--then gut her, rig up a drag, and pull the carcass into Breimen. And that would
about finish it for this afternoon.

The bowl in which the huntsmen rested was several yards across, for the tree that had wrenched loose
was ancient one of immense size. Bare soil still scarred the depression, although material had begun to
slide down from the edges. Something glittered upon the bottom of the hole. A lance of sunlight shone
down from above to spear something bright, embedded in the humus--some object that cast back a
silver reflection to the hunter's eyes. Mildly intrigued, he rose to get a closer look. The object that lay
there in the dirt made him grunt in puzzlement and squat down to make astonished examination.

A ring lay embedded in the dirt. Around it the loam was streaked with white, crumbling material that
seemed to be rotted bone, and reddish splotches which might represent rusted iron intermingled.
Brushing away the loose surface, he discerned a few greenish lumps, recognizable only as corroded brass
or copper. The body of some ancient warrior, possibly--although how long it had moldered here beneath
the forest defied his imagination. Long enough for bones and accoutrements to crumble away--and the
tree that had overgrown the grave was centuries old.

With unsteady hand the hunter pulled the ring free of its bed of tainted clay and brushed loose the
tenacious fragments that encased it. He spat and polished it against his leather trouser leg, then raised it to
his eyes for appraisal. The metal was silvery in appearance, but seemed far harder--and silver should
have tarnished black with antiquity. It seemed to be set with a tremendous cabochon-cut
bloodstone--rich, deep-green stone with red veins traced throughout its depths. But it was a superb
example of that gem, he judged, holding it to a ray of light. For the colors were somewhat more intense,
and there appeared to be a quality of translucency to the stone that made it distinct from the normally
opaque gem. The stone was huge--abnormally large for a ring--and it seemed to fuse cunningly into its