"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 29 - Treasure of the Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

With a brisk wind blowing, it was almost chilly in the open. From the position of the sun Blade guessed it
was early afternoon. He decided to get under cover or at least out of the wind before nightfall. Up here
night could be dangerously chilly for a naked man.

Blade began prowling along the cliff, looking for a way down. Along the river he'd be out of the wind,
and he'd have drinking water and possibly fish. The river might even give him a trail out of this wilderness
to whatever civilization this Dimension might have.

Blade had never landed in a totally uninhabited Dimension and didn't really want to. A Dimension with
no intelligent inhabitants might be useful for colonization, but that would need larger-scale transportation
into Dimension X. It wouldn't be very useful for Richard Blade, who would have to survive like an
animal, with nothing but his bare hands and his wits. There was such a thing as being too alone!

The shadows were getting long before Blade found a place where the cliff had crumbled away to a
slope. A stream breaking out of the fallen rocks made them dark and slick, but he'd climbed barehanded
under worse conditions before. With a final look at the forest, he lowered himself onto the upper end of
the rockfall and began working his way down.

The way down was longer and harder than Blade expected. Several times he had to jump down farther
than he liked, landing precariously and picking up a growing collection of bruises. Once he slipped, rolled
thirty feet downward, nearly sprained his wrist, and came to a stop just short of a vertical drop onto
sharp rocks. It was twilight before he reached the bottom of the rockfall.

In front of him the river swept past the rocks so fast Blade realized it would be suicide to try swimming
across here. He moved on downstream, exploring the riverbank.

He was just about resigned to spending the night curled up among the rocks when his luck turned.
Beyond a line of boulders, the river formed a broad, dark pool, deep and slow-moving. Blade plunged
straight in.

The water was icy cold, but after the first shock Blade found it refreshing. It scoured away some of the
grime and sweat, eased the aches and pains, and left him feeling a great deal better.

His feet were just touching bottom on the far side of the river when a hissing scream sounded high
overhead. Blade dove forward, getting underwater without making a splash. Then he poked his head
above the surface, just as the scream came again, three times in rapid succession.

Looking up, Blade saw a weird shape sail across the sky. It reminded him of a slim mountain lion with
tufted ears and long clawed legs. Heavy ribbed membranes like bat wings extended between the legs,
giving enough lifting surface to support the beast in the air. The creature glided across the sky like an
immense flying squirrel, steering with its short fat tail.

Blade counted nine more of the bat-cats before the last one disappeared. He faintly heard more screams
from well upstream, where they seemed to have landed, then growling which slowly faded away. It
sounded as if the beasts were feeding. On what, Blade didn't know, but knew he'd better be careful or
the next time it might be on him. The bat-cats were large enough to be dangerous opponents for an
unarmed man, even if they hadn't hunted in packs.

Blade headed downstream again, staying in the water for a few hundred yards to avoid leaving a trail.
Then he climbed out of the water, exercised vigorously to warm himself up and unkink his muscles, and