"Andre Norton - Witch World - Warlock of the Witch World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

“Us?”

Shapurn inhaled the breeze. “Not so. They are belly-lean; they hunt to fill
themselves. Ah—they have started meat! Now they yammer on its trail.”

Faintly I could hear it, too, a distant howl. Having been so hunted, I knew pity for the
game they now ran. Ethutur showed a small trace of frown, a break in the usual calm of
his face.
“Too close,” he said aloud. “We must ride the borders more often.” His hand went to
the whipstock at his belt. But he did not draw that weapon. For as long as he carried the
warn-sword he was barred from that by custom.

Shapurn broke into a trot, a pace my mount easily matched, crossing the open end of
the plain with a speed not even one of the famed Torgian mounts of Estcarp could better.
Then we were in a defile where bushes grew a thick curtain on either side of the way.
There was a thin thread of stream curling a snake-path through sand and gravel, as if it
were the ghost of a torrent which ran there at other seasons. I caught a glint from a
pocket of pebbles, a flashing which could not be denied. Without thinking I swung down to
pluck out of that drab nest a blue-green stone. It was one of those esteemed by the Valley
people. Its like was set in the gemmed wristlets and belt Ethutur wore. Although this was
rough and uncut, still it caught the sun and flashed sea fire in my palm.

Ethutur turned impatiently to look back, but when he saw what I held he gave an
exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
“So! By so much does Fortune smile on us, Kemoc. It is a promise that ill does not
intrude too far into this country—since such loses all fire when the Shadow touches them.
A gift to you from this land, and may it be of profit.” He raised his right hand from the hilt
of the warn-sword and made a gesture which I recognized from the crypts of Lormt to be
one of well wishing.
It would seem that my finding of the jewel had heartened my companion, for now he
began to talk. I listened, for all that he had to say concerning this country and its
in-dwellers was of importance.
The Krogan, to whom we were bound, were another race born of early experiments
on the part of the Great Ones. Initially of humankind, volunteers from among the
experimenters, they had been mutated and altered to become water dwellers, though
they could also exist for varying periods of time outside their aquatic world. However,
during the devastation of Escore, they had withdrawn into those depths for safety, and
now were seldom seen ashore. They sometimes inhabited islands in lakes, and came now
and then on the banks of streams.

They had never been hostile to the Green People. In fact, in the past, they had
sometimes united with them. Ethutur spoke of a time when they had loosed a flood for
the taking of a particularly noxious nest of evil things which had holed up where riders
from the Valley could not route them. Ethutur now had hopes of binding them officially to
our company. Hitherto any alliance had been loose and temporary. They would make
excellent scouts, he pointed out, for water ran everywhere in this land; where it flowed,
either the Krogan or the stream dwellers that served them could venture with ease.
 As he talked we came out of the stream cut into a wide, marshy space. But the land
had the look of drought. Marsh reeds and growth were sere and brown. Farther beyond
were small hillocks in pools of water and those were still green. Farther the morass