"Nancy Springer- Sea King Trilogy 01 - Madbond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

I looked down at the hand as if it were a stranger. Indeed, the marks of the bowstring
roughened my fingers and thumb.
Then the one who called himself Rad came over, and, pulling a knife from its leather sheath
at his belt, he began to cut my bonds.
It was a blackstone knife, probably traded from my own tribe, quite ordinary; but I watched it
closely, feeling a queasiness I could not name. The youth released my wrists first, then my
legs, which had also been thickly wrapped. In spite of the wrappings, I saw, there were
bloody cuts on my limbs, in plenty, from the thongs. But the cuts had been treated with
grease and did not hurt me. My prisonmaster offered his hand and helped me to my feet. If I
had been myself I would have scorned his help, but I knew more than ever that something
was wrong, for I could barely stand at first. He had to support me, and I swayed on my feet.
“You have not eaten,” he explained. I placed my palm against the stony wall, and he left me
and went to stand under the entry.
“Eire!” he shouted. “The pole. And he’ll need a rope, I think.” I was able to understand most
of this. The language of the Seal Kindred differed from mine in rhythm—the wash of a lulling
sea was in it. But many of the words were the same. .
I did not need the rope to cling to. I scorned it, centered my strength and climbed the
pole—a pine log with foot notches, creaking but solid—I managed. My folk had always said
of me that I was as strong as a bison. Then they would add, nearly as clumsy. I stumbled out
into the light to find a young guardsman warily eyeing me, spear in hand. Rad came up
behind me and nodded at his tribesfellow.
“Run down ahead of us, now, and see that there is some food ready.”
Eire looked frightened. “My king,” he blurted, making obeisance, “let me walk with you.”
I saw him bow his head, saw his upraised hands, heard the word, “king,” and I staggered
anew in my astonishment. But this—this youth wore no headband, nor even the armband of
a warrior, no fur-tipped cloak, no ornament of any kind. And he was of no great height, being
shorter than I. And his name—no fitting name for a warrior—but as he was of the Seal, he
would have earned another name in vigil, an honored name . . . could it be? He caught at me
with both hands to support me.
“Korridun son of Kela?” I whispered. “Seal king?”
He did not answer me except to nod. “Birc,” he said, annoyed, “there is no need to be afraid.
Go do as I told you—oh, blast it to Mahela, I suppose you had better help me here.”
Birc was scarcely more than a boy, and plainly terrified. Of what, I wondered. Only later did I
discover how truly loyal and courageous he was. He came to do his king’s bidding, and with
one of them on either side of me we walked down the steep mountainside to the headland
where the lodges stood.
Long, low huts of pine timber they were, thatched with reeds. I stared at them all the while we
approached them. This was the strangest of tribes to me, these Seals who ate fish and lived
in fixed dwellings within sight of the snarling sea. My folk were upland hunters, woodsfaring
with the wandering of the deer. . . . The lodges were built atop the rock, overlooking the sea
cliff where the waves beat themselves to foam. In a high storm, spray might have clawed the
log walls. Nothing else stood atop that cliff but
a few contorted pines, and it was all, rocks, trees, and huts, thickly greenfurred with moss
from the damp. The sky hung fishy white, breathing a cold, white fog. It chilled me—I, who
walked bare-chested in the eversnow. I wondered why anyone would live within reach of that
fog, that surf, so much under the eye of sky. But perhaps there was nowhere else to camp.
The mountain slopes came down sheer to the sea.
“Look,” said Korridun to me with a slight quirk in his voice. “My cousins are hauled out.”
Even though he pointed down toward the sea I could not tell what he meant. I saw no people,
only rocks mottled with lichen and weed. Then one of the rocks moved, and I blinked: there