"Adams, Robert - Horseclans 09 - The Witch Godess" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Robert)

Before he could answer, Sergeant Gumpner mounted the knoll to salute and render a brief report. "Sir, one pony dead of a broken neck, three more had to be put down—with the axe, to save ammo; I had to shoot one round to save Trooper Jenkins's life from the doctor's mule, and that animal is dead, too. A couple of ponies were bitten by the mule, but not so badly they can't be ridden. Both Jenkins and Pruitt were knocked down and bruised, but neither is hurt. Your orders, sir?"

The order did not come, for at that moment, the boiling column on the northern horizon was suddenly shot through with flames and objects glowing so brightly that it blinded one to look at them. And, within split seconds, came a sound so loud that the barely quieted beasts were set once more to rearing and screaming, while men clapped hands to their abused ears and writhed on the ground in pain. But as quickly as the unbearable noise came, it was gone.

Corbett had just jumped up and grabbed the bridles of the two near-hysterical mules when he heard Erica shriek. A quick glance over his shoulder showed the battered, bloody-faced woman pointing mutely at the sky, through which a veritable host of dark somethings were hurtling out of the flame-riven column of gases from the volcano. In all directions they spread trailing plumes of smoke.

The first to ground anywhere near Corbett bounced down onto the rocky rubble covering the pack train and his men. It struck and bounced, once, twice, then shattered into many chunks and pieces… pieces of dully glowing rock. Almost immediately, a strong wind commenced to blow up from the south, its passage ruffling the sere grasses, brush and trees. In nearby places where other superheated rocks had grounded, fires sprang up rapidly and, fanned by the sudden wind, became instant conflagrations, sending animals and ponies that had fled into the forested areas racing back onto the relatively open areas flanking the track.

Erica limped again to Corbett's side. "Jay, I saw something very much like this happen in Cuba. It was about five hundred years ago, at the time of those worldwide seismic disturbances, the ones that ended by turning Florida and most of the Gulf Coast into swamps and sank so much of the East Coast. I know, therefore, what will happen now, and we've got to move fast if we mean to live through it."

By radio and by voice—for the fine, falling ash and the consequent lessening of sunlight had made a twilight world of their surroundings—Corbett and Gumpner and a corporal who happened to own a fine, far-ranging tenor began to rally such men as had survived the hideous disaster, then led them all, with their mounts and such pack animals as were easily caught, to an area chosen by Erica. There, hard by the rockfall beneath which lay the bodies of their comrades, the men moved out in a wide arc, firing the brush.

The slice of hell to the north was still sucking in cooler air from every direction and the swift-flowing wind currents had soon whipped the series of small blazes into a holocaust of truly monumental proportions. Northward and westward the fire raced, to join here and there those fires set by the first shower of hot rocks.

From within the depths of those merciless flames came the agonized death screams of countless beasts, and a violent explosion a few hundred yards to the west told of the demise of one of the panicked pack mules with a load of munitions. Another pack animal—this one a largish pony—stumbled out of the blazing brush, obviously blinded and screaming like a lost soul, until Sergeant Gumpner ran to its side and ended its suffering with his short-handled, heavy-bladed and already bloodstained battle axe.

Braun and the other wounded men and animals were very fortunate, for that one pony axed down by Gumpner near the rockfall was the beast on which had been packed the bulk of the expedition's medical supplies and drugs so that far more men lived through the terrible night than might otherwise have done so. It was likewise fortunate for them all that Erica included among her degrees an M.D.

After she had set, bandaged and splinted Braun's leg and administered those medications available, she went on to clean and cover wounds and burns and handle broken bones for first the men, then the riding and pack animals. But she refused to attempt surgery on the two unconscious troopers obviously in need of such treatment.

"Yes, Jay, I was and still am a very gifted surgeon, in my mind, that is; but good surgery is more than simple knowledge of procedures. The body must be trained as well, you see, and this one is not. I've not been in it long enough to even get to know it very well. And even were I in my original body—the one I was born in, I mean—under the existing conditions and with the available equipment, I very seriously doubt that I could help those two. Probably the kindest thing to be done is to have Gumpner put them down as he did that pony with its eyes burned out. But best to do it now, before they have a chance to come to and start to suffer again."

But Corbett did not delegate the soul-wrenching task to his subordinates. He borrowed Gumpner's axe and did the two mercy killings himself, driving the backspike of the axe accurately and deeply into each wounded man's skull at the confluence with the spinal column.

When Gumpner inquired as to burials, Corbett could only shake his head and sigh. "We lack even a single spade, and besides, the soil's too thin hereabouts for a real grave. No, Sergeant, strip them—clothing, too; we aren't out of this mess yet, not by a long shot, and we may have need of all their effects before we are—then get them farther up on top the landslide and try to cover them with rocks.

"Have a detail get the gear off that pony and then butcher the carcass. Have another detail scrounge any pots or pans, then send some men out there to drag some of those charred treetrunks back here to cook the meat.

"Corporal Cash," he said, turning to the junior noncom, he of the high-tenor voice, "take a head count—how many sound men, how many wounded, how many weapons and how much ammo for them, quantities and types of supplies or equipment left or salvageable, important items that are missing, that sort of thing. And find out how much water we have. It will have to be pooled and rationed tonight and maybe tomorrow."

The night came down quickly, was long and unremittingly hellish, with neither moon nor stars visible, but the whole area lit by the dim and flaring glow of near and distant fires. Ash fine as dust continued to drift thickly down, occasionally interspersed with showers of glowing coals blown by the shifting winds from the blazing forests on the hillsides.

The animals on the picket line had to be constantly tended. Every protectable inch of their hides had to be covered and their nostrils and eyes hooded with wet cloths. The humans too found it necessary to shield exposed skin surfaces from the corrosive, blistering ash, and to breathe through damp fabric. In the dearth of water, Corbett ordered that the animals' cloths, at least, be wetted down with their own and human urine.

No one got any sleep, three of the wounded died, and it seemed to all that that endless night of fire and horror would never come to an end. But, like all nights, end it did, in a wan and hesitant dawning.

"Were it feasible," Jay Corbett informed Erica, "I'd stay here at least another day, but we and the animals all must have water, and soon, and the map shows a sizable stream only a few klicks farther along this track. Except for Dr. Braun, for whom I'm having a horse litter made and rigged between my mule and that one that strayed in, last night, Gumpner has determined that all of the wounded left alive this morning are fully capable of sitting a pony. You've got Braun's mule and the rest of us will walk."

She nodded understanding and approval, but said, "Fine, Jay, but before we do anything, we must radio Broomtown or the Center or both, let them know what's happened and have them on standby, ready to copter up and get Harry and the few loads left as soon as we're within range."

He shook his head. "Impossible, Doctor. Even with booster units—which we no longer have—these saddle sets won't range much over twenty miles."

"But the big transceiver… ?" she began, then frowned, remembering. "Oh!"

"That's right, Doctor. It was near the end of the train, along with all of our supplies, ammo, tents and so on, so it's either under the rocks back there or somewhere out in those burned-over areas; useless to us, in either case, even if we took the time and were lucky enough to find it. No, Doctor, forget about help from the Center or Broomtown or anywhere else. We're on our own, and we will be for some hundreds of kilometers more."

Twice before they were formed up to begin the southward march, stray ponies—two of the four still bearing pack saddles—wandered in, three of them forming a small herd and the other in company with a full-sized horse.

The horse seemed a bit skittish, but Corbett, who had always had a way with equines, quickly won the big gelding over and, after petting him for a while, examined him and his equipage.