"John Dalmas - The Helverti Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

The Lizard War
The Helverti Invasion
The Puppet Master
Soldiers
The Regiment
The White Regiment
The Regiment's War
The Three Cornered War
The Lion of Farside
The Bavarian Gate
Part One
ROOTS




ROOTS
Vision Quest

Trail-worn and half-starved, Mazeppa slipped through the undergrowth. His
face, body, limbs, recently shaved head, all bore what was left of medicine
paint. Its symbols were to help on his vision quest-a very unusual vision
quest-and only incidentally served as camouflage.
He was pursued by the shrieks of a blue jay in a giant silver maple. "Man!
Man! Man!" it shrieked. "Man! Man! Man!" Mazeppa ignored the racket,
and settled onto his belly beside a growth of red osier on the riverbank.
After a bit, when he failed to move again, the jay's clamor became erratic,
confused, as if the bird had forgotten what it was shouting about. Finally
the youth heard its departing wing beats. Somewhere on the terrace
behind and above him, a nest of baby robins renewed their querulous cries
for food. A parent began sharp, demanding chirps. A little later there was
the sound of wings again-one mate returning to the nest, the other
departing.
For a time, the only sound besides the peeping nestlings was the barely
perceptible murmur of the Misasip: the soft drag of its current along the
bank, the faint play of interweaving eddies and subcurrents. The youth's
empty belly no longer distracted him as it had the first days, and at a
subliminal level each sound registered. He heard it all, understood it all,
ignored it all. Had there been a hint of anything worrisome, it would have
caught his attention. Meanwhile he simply watched the great river.
Upstream on the far side, another sizeable river joined its waters to the
Misasip. At the juncture was an area of many structures, a walled town,
and rising within it on the high bank, a higher enclosure of stone, with
towers. Mazeppa knew of the great town, and of the towered enclosure
called Palace. When he was a little boy, a wandering storyteller had
stopped among the people and told of it.
Briefly Mazeppa examined it. Then, on the Misasip itself, a great raft
came into view, riding the current, a broad tent near its center. Men lay or
moved languidly about. On the stern a man stood holding a long pole that
trailed in the water, a very long paddle, Mazeppa realized, for steering. As