"Liz Williams - Banner of Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Liz)

BANNER OF SOULS
Liz Williams

A Bantam Book / October 2004
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright ┬й 2004 by Liz Williams
Cover illustration ┬й 2004 by Cliff Nielson
Cover design by Jamie S. Warren Youll
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by anyinformation storage and retrieval system,
without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
For information address: Bantam Books, New York, New York.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property It
was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to thepublisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has
received any payment for this "stripped book."
Bantam Books, Spectra, and their colophons are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
ISBN 0-553-58676-9
Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada

For Peter Garratt
Acknowledgments
With thanks to
тАв my editor Anne Groell
тАв my agent Shawna McCarthy
тАв everyone in the Montpellier Writing group and the Cantonese Writing group
тАв everyone at Milford
тАв Tanith Lee, for all her support
тАв Mark Roberts, for the shark monkey
тАв and to Jay Caselberg for the pangolin and much else besides
The Ghost Herd
CHAPTER 1
Mars
Dreams-of-War was hunting the remnants of men on the slopes of the Martian Olympus when she
came across the herd of ghosts. The armor bristled at the approach of the herd, whispering caution into
her ear, and at first Dreams-of-War thought that it was warning her against the presence of
menтАФhyenae, perhaps, or vulpen, or others of the Changed. She wheeled around, activating the
hand-spines of the armor, but there was nothing there. The cold, tawny slopes rolled into the distance,
empty of everything except scrub and the sparse desert life that congregated around the canals and sinks.
Far on the horizon, the col-umn of Memnos Tower pointed upward, just visible now against a darkening
sky. Dreams-of-War frowned. The ar-mor remained alert, porcupine spikes forming and reform-ing as
she moved.
"What?" Dreams-of-War said aloud, impatiently.
"There is someone here," the armor said. Sometimes it spoke with the voice of the warrior who had
first im-printed it, but sometimes the voice sounded more akin to that of Dreams-of-War herself. That
was the trouble with haunt-tech; one was never sure whether one was imagin-ing things. But perhaps one
could expect no less from something that had been granted by aliens.