"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 25 - The Terridae" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

brush. He doubled, retching, as Dumarest kicked him in the
stomach, staggering back to become hooked in thorned spines.

"Jarl?" The voice came from ahead, impatient, querulous.
"You get him? You get him, Jarl?"

Two of them and there could be more. Dumarest lifted the
knife from his boot and slipped to one side among the brambles
feeling the rasp of thorns over his clothing, the drag and burn as
a barb tore at his scalp.

"Jarl? Answer me, damn you!"

A rustle and Dumarest saw a mottled bulk, the loom of gross
body, the gleam of sunlight reflected from furtive eyes. A man
lunged forward, gripping a gnarled branch. His fingers parted
beneath the slash of razor-edged steel to fall in spurting showers
of blood.

"You bastard!" Pain and rage convulsed the ravaged face. "I'll
have your eyes for that! Leave you to wander blind in the brush!
Jarl! Kelly! Get him, damn you!"

He backed, his uninjured hand diving into a pocket, lifting
again weighted with the bulk of a gun. A wide-barreled
shot-projector which could fill the air with a lethal hail. As it
appeared Dumarest threw himself forward, blade extended, the
point ripping into the body below the breastbone in an upwards
thrust which reached the heart. Killing as surely as the burn of a
laser through the brain.

As the man fell he heard a frantic cursing, the clumsy passage
of a body close at hand, the echoes of another from where he had
left his pack. When he reached the spot he found it gone.

The jangle of bells reminded him of the boy.

He sat where he'd been thrown, his eyes anxious, the injured
leg held stiffly before him. The ankle was too swollen for the lad
to do more than crawl. Jarl had vanished, scraps of skin and
clothing left hanging on broken thorns, a trail of blood marking
his passage, a trail Dumarest could easily follow but not while
carrying the boy. And, with darkness, other predators would
come eager for helpless prey.

"Up!" Dumarest lifted the small body to his shoulder. "I'd
better get you home."


The town matched the planet—small, bleak, devoid of all but