"Stanley G. Weinbaum - Dawn of Flame" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

Ancients, and the tall man's bow was of glittering spring steel.

"Ho, mountainy!" said the dark one. "Where going?"

"Norse," answered Hull shortly,
"What's in the bag?"

"My tongue," snapped the youth.

"Easy, there," grunted the light man. "No offense, mountainy. We're just curious. That's a good knife you
got. I'll trade it."

"For what?"

"For lead in your craw," growled the dark one. Suddenly the blunt pistol was in his hand. "Pass it over,
and the bag too."

Hull scowled from one to the other. At last he shrugged, and moved as if to lift his bag from his
shoulders. And then, swift as the thrust of a striking diamondback, his left foot shot forward, catching the
dark one squarely in the pit of his stomach, with the might of Hull's muscles and weight behind it.

The man had breath for a low grunt; he doubled and fell, while his weapon spun a dozen feet away into
the dust. The light one sprang for it, but Hull caught him with a great arm about his throat, wrenched
twice, and the brief fight was over. He swung placidly on toward Norse with a blunt revolver primed and
capped at his hip, a glistening spring-steel bow on his shoulder, and twenty-two bright tubular steel
arrows in his quiver.

He topped a little rise and the town lay before him. He stared. A hundred houses at least. Must be five
hundred people in the town, more people than he'd ever seen in his life all together. He strode eagerly on,
goggling at the church that towered high as a tall tree, at the windows of bits of glass salvaged from
ancient ruins and carefully pieced together, at the tavern with its swinging emblem of an unbelievably fat
man holding a mammoth mug. He stared at the houses, some of them with shops before them, and at the
people, most of them shod in leather.

He himself attracted little attention. Norse was used to the mountainies, and only a girl or two turned
appraising eyes toward his mighty figure. That made him uncomfortable, however; the girls of the
mountains giggled and blushed, but never at that age did they stare at a man. So he gazed defiantly back,
letting his eyes wander from their bonnets to the billowing skirts above their leather strap-sandals, and
they laughed and passed on.

Hull didn't care for Norse, he decided. As the sun set, the houses loomed too close, as if they'd stifle him,
so he set out into the countryside to sleep. The remains of an ancient town bordered the village, with its
spectral walls crumbling against the west. There were ghosts there, of course, so he walked farther,
found a wooded spot, and lay down, putting his bow and the steel arrows into his bag against the rusting
effect of night-dew. Then he tied the bag about his bare feet and legs, sprawled comfortably, and slept
with his hand on the pistol grip. Of course there were no animals to fear in these woods save wolves, and
they never attacked humans during the warm parts of the year, but there were men, and they bound
themselves by no such seasonal laws.

He awoke dewy wet. The sun shot golden lances through the trees, and he was ravenously hungry. He