"Mercedes Lackey - Flights of Fantasy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

By the time Bui had the belly open, the rocks behind him were covered with
black birds. Cursing, the ravens drove off the yammering guillemots and gulls,
then dropped back to their perches, watching his progress with critical gaze.
As the boy pulled open the slit flesh, the steaming guts spilled out onto the
sand and the entire flock rose in a fluttering mass, calling excitedly.
"Very well—here's your share!" Bui exclaimed. "Now leave me in peace while I
get mine!" He scooped up as much of the slippery mass as he could and pulled
it to one side, and as he finished extracting it, the ravens swooped down and
began to feed.
The gods were kind, and gave him three days of fair weather before the clouds
closed in once more. By that time Bui had carved most of the nuscle meat away
from the bones, sliced it into thin strips and hung them to dry. The ravens
picked clean what remained and took to harryring the gulls and stealing their
food. The hide he pegged out, scraped clean and scoured with
brine. But when the first drops of rain began to fall, he bundled it all into
the shelter of the cliff.
He had lived his life mostly inland, and was not prepared for the fury of the
storm. When the waves were driven almost to his refuge he was terrified, but
better he should die now than abandon the food that might get him through the
winter. And presently the waters began to calm. It was when boxes and bundles
and the timbers of a wrecked ship began to wash ashore
that he realized that the sea had more bounty to bestow.
With them came the corpses of men.
Bui dragged the bodies ashore, swallowing his revulsion at the feel of clammy
flesh for the sake of the garments that covered them. Sea-stained though they
were, they were better than his own rags. It was a race between him and the
ravens, who did not understand why he would not share this windfall as he had
always shared his prey with them before.
He finished piling stones over the body of a man whose wool tunic had been
clasped with gold, and started toward the next two bodies, which were lying
tangled in the seaweed just
above the tide. The white-spotted raven had landed on the head of the nearest,
but before
Bui could wave it off, it hopped aside with a screech of exasperation and then
flapped away. As the boy reached down to grab the neckband of the man's tunic
he felt a faint pulse. His own pulse leaped as the other body stirred, and he
realized that these two still lived!
They were barely conscious, and the tide was coming in. Trembling, Bui dragged
them over the stones to his shelter. It had been so long since he had spoken
to anyone he wondered if he could still master human words. He built up the
fire, and laid them as close as he dared to its flame, chafing chilled limbs,
and presently first one and then the other began to cough and shiver and open
his eyes.
It was the next morning before they were able to tell him their story. They
were from Norway, nephews to the master of the foundered long-ship, come on
their first voyage to trade for wadmal cloth and walrus ivory and the skins of
seals. Hogni and Torstein were their names. Younger sons, they had intended to
make their way by trading, but all hope of that had drowned when their uncle's
ship went down. Did Bui know of a farm that needed laborers?
Bui felt his own features contorting in a twisted grin. "If you are willing to