"Prisoner of the Horned helmet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Silke James)

Ten

Brown John, Bone and Dirken rode south through the spare trees and green glades of the Valley of Miracles. Two miles from Rag Camp they reached Summer Trail and headed west. It was a wide dusty avenue between the trees, filled with summer sun. An hour later they entered The Shades. Here the trail narrowed, and the soil became dark, moist. Shadows populated the dense foliage of the rain forest, and the undulating ground rose and fell as the trail twisted between massive firs, hemlock and spruce. The three men had not seen the six riders, nor any sign of them.

They plunged on, leaping over fallen trees, ignoring the pain as their suntanned faces whipped through overhanging ferns.

Summer Trail became muddy; small creeks cut across it, murky ponds hid it. It almost vanished altogether within clusters of elderberry before it widened again and rose toward Calling Rock, a massive stack of house-sized boulders which stood several hundred feet above the tops of the trees. Creepers and shrubs crowded the base of the rock at the eastern end. Gulleys and cracks cut up into the rock, twisted under overhanging rocks and over fallen boulders as they thrust towards the heights.

The three Grillards rode across the wide clearing of bald earth at the southern side of the rock, then left the trail moving north along the western side. They turned up a wide, open gulley which rose almost two-thirds of the way to the top of the rocks. They whipped their horses up into the gulley until their mounts bogged down in loose earth, then dismounted and scrambled forward on foot. They cut their way through rope-thick cobwebs, reached a turn in the gulley and bulled up it through a tangle of fallen boulders five times their size.

Reaching the heights of the rock they stood gasping for a moment. There, boulders, shrubs, and trees surrounded an open flat shelf of rock. At its far edge stood a naked, black thorn tree. Its branches, burnt to sharp points, thrust like giant spears at the belly of the pink-gold sky. The three men hurried across the clearing to the base of the tree. There was an oval opening in its charred shell.

Brown John muttered, “Hurry! Hurry!”

Bone poked around inside the tree with his club. Satisfied that no spider or snake lay in wait, he reached in and came away with a bullhorn as thick as his thigh. Hurriedly he dropped his club against the tree, took the horn in two hands and, taking a deep breath, blew. Two long, resonant, shrill blasts, one short. Bone waited as Dirken counted to one hundred, then repeated this short performance.

They sat down to wait.

Time passed.

No sounds of breaking branches or rustling leaves. No flurry of birds to indicate someone approaching silently, and no sounds of the six riders in the distance. Only the quiet steady drip of dew and the wind singing through the trees.

More time passed, then a sudden terror-fed howl of pain pierced the peaceful murmur of the rain forest, then again and again.

Brown John, Bone and Dirken jumped to their feet, raging.

The howl came once more, terrible and prolonged. From the south.

Brown John led the way back across the clearing. Reaching their horses, they mounted on the run and bolted down the gulley kicking up dust and rubble. They headed south, following no trail. They plunged through openings in the forest, rode down ferns and shrubs, twisted through thick fallen trees, jumped others. The distant sounds of battle, cursing men, the clang of metal, spurred their reckless charge.

Their mounts faltered, but they drove them on through thornbushes and across vaporous ponds tangled with creepers and possibly quicksand. Then the clamor stopped as abruptly as it had started.

Brown John reined up hard. His sons found their way through the thick undergrowth to his side and consulted him silently.

“Wait here.” It was a whispered command.

Brown John prodded his horse forward, cautiously picking his way through the rain forest.