"Gene Wolfe - New Sun 4 - The Citadel of the Autarch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

remains of earlier formations. If that were so, the fighting they must
have seen had left them phlegmatic. They swung along, four
thousand or so in all, without excitement, reluctance, or any sign of
fatigue, careless in their bearing but not slovenly, and seemed to

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keep step without thought or effort.
Wagons drawn by grunting, trumpeting trilophodons followed. I
edged nearer the road as they came, for much othe baggage they
carried was clearly food; but there were mounted men among the
wagons, and one called to me, asking what unit I belonged to, then
ordering me to him. I fled instead, and though I was fairly sure he
could not ride among the trees and would not abandon his destrier
to pursue me on foot, I ran until I was winded.
When I stopped at last, it was in a silent glade where greenish
sunlight filtered through the leaves of spindly trees. Moss covered
the ground so thickly that I felt as if I walked upon the dense carpet
of the hidden picture-room where I had encountered the Master of
the House Absolute. For a while I rested my back against one of the
thin trunks, listening. There came no sound but the gasping of my
own breath and the tidal roar of my blood in my ears.
In time I became aware of a third note: the faint buzzing of a fly. I
wiped my streaming face with the edge of my guild cloak. That
cloak was sadly worn and faded now, and I was suddenly conscious
that it was the same one Master Gurloes had draped about my
shoulders when I became a journeyman, and that I was likely to die
in it. The sweat it had absorbed felt cold as dew, and the air was
heavy with the odor of damp earth.
The buzzing of the fly ceased, then resumed--perhaps a trifle more
insistently, perhaps merely seeming so because I had my breath
again. Absently, I looked for it and saw it dart through a shaft of
sunlight a few paces off, then settle on a brown object projecting
from behind one of the thronging trees.

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A boot.
I had no weapon whatsoever. Ordinarily I would not have been
much afraid of confronting a single man with my hands alone,
especially in such a place, where it would have been impossible to
swing a sword; but I knew much of my strength was gone, and I
was discovering that fasting destroys a part of one's courage as well
--or perhaps it is only that it consumes a part of it, leaving less for
other exigencies.
However that might be, I walked warily, sidelong and silently, until