"Lee Killough - The Leopard's Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Killough Lee)

after the distant sparks of the wachiru torches, horrified and shamed by her savage desire. Bitterly, she
wondered if Tomo were right. Maybe she was acting for self-seeking reasons, and perhaps she must fail.
If Tomo Silla, a hero of Kiba who had faced countless Qeorou and Burdamu in single combat, was
afraid, there must be good reason. Thinking of the host of demons and spirits that owned the world at
night, the skin on her spine ran with fire and cold.
Jeneba welcomed the fear, though. It blunted her anger and hurt. Her mind steadied as nerves pulled
taut, stretching awareness into the night around her... to shafts of moonlight pouring through the trees to
turn the woods into a great palace hall supported by silver pillars, to wild buffalo and eland drinking at the
lake shore, to night birds singing in the trees and lion roaring and hyena whooping out in the grasslands.
The carrion odor carried back from the wachiru ahead. And testing the night, Jeneba's thoughts churned.
A warrior must fight with honor. It meant more than victory itself. However, would Mseluku and the
warriors care why she rescued them, as long as she succeeded? Honor could be debated in the safety of
Kiba's walls.
Footsteps ran behind her. Jeneba's heart caught. Was it a nogama, ready to slash her with its clawed
palms... or the spirit of some dead ancestor, demanding gifts to sustain its existence? Fearfully, she risked
one glance back and let out her breath in relief. Tomo Silla. Then anger replaced relief.
"Have you lost your way to Kiba?"
The whites of his eyes glinted as he glanced toward her in the dark. "You represent warrior-honor
poorly, sister, to speak with such disrespect to a hero who has contemplated your words and concluded
that you're right: being Dasa, we can rescue our people, from the monsters."
Warmth flooded her. Sister. Our people. Despite his fear, he would still run through the night with her
and face the wachiru? That was heroism indeed. She instantly regretted her anger.
"Please forgive my words, Tomo. I spoke unfairly, in haste and ignorance."
He grunted acceptance and they fell silent as they ran together behind the wachiru party, watching both
the torches and the shadows around them, alert for anything not plant or animal.
Jeneba wished that the carrion smell were less strong, so she could smell any demons approaching.
Still, that scent had been useful. Without it, she too might be among the dead or captives. Somewhere in
the woods a leopard screamed and the sound brought an unbidden thought: if she had only a human
nose, she never have noticed the carrion smell until too late. Mere hearing would not have heard the
wachiru footsteps either, and now, night vision helped her find her way and search the shadows for
demons. Hastily she looked for something else to think about.
"Tomo, why do you think the wachiru attacked this way? All the stories say that one man meets one
half-man who challenges him to wrestle, not a group that attacks with clubs."
"I don't know." Tomo's whisper hesitated. "Things... change. The seers tell us that many things are
changing, that the Sahara is drying up and that the grass will disappear one day, that the wild buffalo and
sheep and our cattle will die. They say sand will cover not only Kiba but great cities like Yagana and
Kouddoun. The wachiru must be changing too."
Ahead, the line of half-men scattered. Jeneba caught her breath. The village! She stopped caring about
everything except reaching Mseluku and the warriors. Slipping from shadow to shadow, she and Tomo
worked their way to the edge of the village, where they climbed a tree for a better vantage point and sat
in a fork with backs pressed against rising branches.
The village consisted of two concentric circles of mud and grass huts protected by no walls or watch
dogs. Entering it should be easy, then... except that the captives had been taken to the open center and
hung by their wrists or ankles from racks there. She and Tomo would have to walk into the very middle
of the village to reach the them.
"We can keep in the shadows," she said, "but do you know any way to tell if a wachiru is watching us
with the off-side toward us?"
A leopard screamed off toward the grasslands, answered by a howl neither animal nor human. Tomo's
eyes glistened as he glanced over his shoulder, fingering the hilt of his sword. "This is madness. No one
would bother saving you if you were hanging from a wachiru meat rack."