"Van Lustbader, Eric - Pearl 01 The Ring of Five Dragons(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

"Never!"
Doubtless, the banter would have continued in this vein had not something odd appeared in Annon's peripheral vision.
"Kurgan!" he whispered as he crouched. "Kurgan, look! Over there!"
Kurgan sighted along the line indicated by his friend's extended arm. A brilliant triangle of sunlight oozed through a gap in the trees. Within that triangle, a flicker of movement. Kurgan, shifting to get a better angle, snapped a dried twig beneath his boot sole. Immediately, Annon clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his foul exclamation. The two boys froze.
V'ornn were hairless with long, smooth-skinned tapering skulls and a pale yellow cast to their flesh. Annon's virtually colorless eyes and solemn mouth instantly set him apart from Kurgan, whose thin, angular face was made all the more so by contrast to his night-black eyes. Both of them could see the continued flicker of movement within the triangle of white light. By an unspoken agreement born of being raised together in lьina do mori, the two friends made their cautious, silent way to the far side of the sysal copse. At the very edge of the triangle of light their mouths grew dry.
"I don't believe it!" Kurgan whispered.
"What a find!" Annon responded in the same low tone.
"Magnificent!"
"Just what I was thinking!"
"But I said it first, so it's mine!"
"Over my tender parts!"
As they peered out into the dazzling sunshine, the cool sound of the creek—one of the many offshoots of the mighty Chuun, which fed the Great Phosphorus Marsh twenty leagues to the west—rippled into the copse. With it came the soft tinkle of delighted laughter, for the object of their attention was no bright-feathered gimnopede, no six-legged marsh lizard. Not even the sight of a narbuck with its precious spiral horn—gone from Kundala with the coming of the V'ornn—could have moved these teenage boys the way the sight of the young Kundalan female did.
With the hem of her robe piled high on her creamy white thighs, she had ventured into the shallows of the creek. She wriggled her toes, stirring up sediment and tadpoles. It was the sight of these tadpoles scattering, the boys surmised, that had set off her tinkling laughter. Not that they paid much mind to the sounds she was making. No, no, they were staring with rapt attention at her hair. It was thick and brown as leeesta fried in a pan. It was piled on top of her head, set with a pair of long filigreed shell pins typical of the race. As they watched, she ventured another step into the creek. Now her feet were covered. Abruptly, she raised her head and took a look around her. Both boys froze, holding their breath lest she discover them spying on her and run away. They were not afraid of her, of course. They were V'ornn; they were unafraid of any Kundalan. Rather, they found themselves drawn to her, each in his own way. And then there was the matter of her hair.
Doubtless, because the V'ornn were an utterly hairless race, their reaction to Kundalan hair ran the gamut from revulsion to erotic preoccupation. It was rumored, in fact, that the Gyrgon were frequent visitors to the Kundalan kashiggen, where they paid for the services of the mysterious Imari, who wore their hair so long it was said an attendant was required to hold it as they walked. Since the Gyrgon were fond of planting rumors and myths concerning themselves, on this matter no one could properly separate truth from fiction.
The boys watched, stupefied, as the young Kundalan female reached up and pulled the filigreed pins. Her hair cascaded like Heavenly Rushing, tumbling between her shoulder blades. Then she began to undress. First, the vest, then the blouse, then the long, layered skirt. With an uninhibited cry of delight, she plunged naked into the water. As the water purled around her thighs, they saw all her hair.
Kurgan had dropped his double brace of gimnopedes. They lay at his feet, broken-necked prey, forgotten now, in the heat of the newest hunt.
"There's a choice clemett ripe for the picking," he said thickly. "I must have her."
Without another word, he broke cover. Annon, dropping his longbow, was right beside him as they both raced toward her. Annon was the fleeter of the two. Kurgan, seeing he would lose this race, stuck out his leg. Annon tripped and went sprawling head over tender parts onto the greensward.
Kurgan, making the most of his sudden advantage, reached the edge of the bank in no time and leapt into the water just as the young Kundalan female became aware of him. She gave a shriek, trying to get away from him as he took hold of her. She struggled as he forced her down, plunging her head beneath the water repeatedly until she was sufficiently winded that he could drag her without further resistance into the shallows. There he fell heavily upon her, covering her mouth with his own.
Annon, lying amid sprays of wrygrass and whistleflowers, witnessed this assault with a divided nature. He, too, felt the quick heaviness in his loins at the sight of the girl; he, too, felt the urge to fall on her and sate his lust. Intrinsically, there was nothing wrong with this. The Kundalan were inferior—one more slave race the V'ornn had conquered. And yet… And yet something—some dimly heard voice—restrained him, whispering in his ear: This is wrong. He trembled. Of course, it was Giyan's voice inside his head. Giyan being Kundalan was a matter of no small import to Annon, since she was the one who had raised him. Of course, if she had not been the regent's mistress she would never have been given such an important job, would never have been allowed to join hingatta lьina do mori nor any other hingatta, for that matter. But Eleusis had been chosen as regent by the Gyrgon, and while they might not allow him to make laws on his own, his word among all the castes was Law. His word was Law because it rang with the weight of the Gyrgon. Others might gripe and grouse about the regent, as Stogggul did, but that was all it amounted to: whispers of dissatisfaction like the chafing of skin under ill-fitting clothes.
Of course, Giyan raised him. She was his father's mistress; she did his bidding. Like a good slave. A slave whose whisper somehow had the power to penetrate his skull even when she was not present. Perhaps Kurgan was right about her; perhaps she was a sorceress.
In any event, he could no longer bear to listen to that voice. He ran into the brilliant glare of sunshine, shot down the steep bank like an arrow, and fell upon the struggling pair. He could see Kurgan's bare buttocks, the intent, almost half-mad look of bloodlust in his friend's eyes. Curiously, these observations served only to spur his determination. To do what? To scratch his itch, to lighten the curious heaviness in his loins, to fight for his own fill of this nubile young Kundalan female. To negate that maddening whisper filling the corridors of his brain.
He dug his fingers into the bunched muscles of Kurgan's shoulders. Kurgan reared up, swung his upper body toward Annon, and swatted him with the back of his hand. Annon, unprepared for the blow, staggered a little. He came on again, right into a short, powerful jab. He knelt in the water, seeing stars. But as his vision cleared, he saw the look on the girl's face and his blood ran cold. She was no longer resisting. Instead, her eyes had a glazed look, as if she were peering into the very far distance, to a place where no V'ornn could venture. It was a look he had seen many times on the faces of the Kundalan slaves in Axis Tyr. It was a look that enraged him, made him feel his mother's abandonment of him as if it were a knife wound in his belly. And somehow that feeling of rage led his mind back to when he was a child, crying in the night. He had wanted his mother but what had he gotten instead? A Kundalan slave! He would call his mother's name in fear, but also to vex Giyan, to punish her for being where his mother ought to be.
If it was a night when she was not pleasuring his father, Giyan would answer his call. Without his asking, she would rock him even though he could barely abide her touch—the touch of a Kundalan his father inexplicably adored! She would recite strange, disquieting legends of the Goddess Mьna and the Five Sacred Dragons that had created Kun-dala or sing him to sleep with lyrics borne on eerie melodies that wormed their way into his brain. She possessed a beautiful voice, he had to give her that.
But there was something about her, a profound sadness perhaps that informed many of her expressions, that bled the pleasure from her smiles. Once, he awoke in her arms to find her weeping in her sleep. Tears rolled down her cheeks in unending streams as she dreamed her terrible dream, and even though it caused a catch of revulsion in his throat, he slipped his hand into hers and held her alien fingers tightly.
He was half-blinded by the sunlight reflected in dazzling scimitars across the creek. His rage overpowered his inertia. Growling like a caged beast, he punched Kurgan in the jaw, struck him a ragged but powerful blow on the point of his chin, and was thus able to pry him loose from his prey. The girl lay, half-dazed, until Annon reached down. She flinched as he hauled her up by her arm. She shrank away from him when he released her.
For a moment, they formed a peculiar tableau—the male conqueror and the female slave, their alien eyes locked, their alien hearts beating with unknown intent. This was the moment to take her, Annon knew, the moment to strike back at the Kundalan sorceress who had suckled him as a babe and at his father, who needed her more than Annon did. The moment to claim, as a V'ornn, what was rightfully his. But he did nothing. Behind him, Kurgan groaned, a sound not unlike the breaking of a bottle's seal.
"Get out of here!" Annon growled into the Kundalan's bewildered face. Then, more forcefully: "Do as I say, female, and do it quickly before I change my mind!"
Kurgan, on his knees, groaned again and coughed up pale blue phlegm. As the Kundalan waded hastily toward shore, he lunged after her. She screamed. Annon dragged him back into the creek. Kurgan kicked him in the shin.
"I want what I want, my friend," he panted as they grappled. "Stay out of my way, I warn you."
"I have given her safe passage," Annon said.
This made Kurgan laugh. "Are you mad? Who are you to grant her such a thing?"
"I am the regent's son." Why was he doing this? Annon asked himself. What was this alien female to him? His mind's eye was filled with the sight of Giyan writhing in bed with his father while he called his mother's name. The night, he had come to learn, is the time to give voice to one's own pain.
"Oh, yes. Eleusis the Great, Eleusis the Powerful," Kurgan sneered. He was angry and frustrated. "The man whose father was anointed by the Gyrgon, held on close leash by the Gyrgon, a regent like all others, without power. Power which resides solely with the Gyrgon."
"And yet, your own father lusted after the regent's crown and moved heaven and earth to claim the Gyrgon vote," Annon countered.
"My father is a fool, obsessed with his enmity against your family. Had I been him, I would have found a way to become regent."
"And then what? The regent serves at the pleasure of the Gyrgon. The power resides with them. This is the way it has always been."
"But not the way it must be forever!"
Then they were at it again with tooth and nail, muscle and sinew, brute strength and guile—drawing on every asset available to their powerful, youthful minds and bodies.
Eleana, the Kundalan girl, watched with a certain fascinated terror as these two alien beasts fought in the shallows just below her. She gathered her clothes, not with the due haste Annon had ordered, but with a languor born of this battle. Now to have two V'ornn fighting over her, it was, well, overwhelming. True, they were beasts, cruel and hairless and stinking and unknowable. And yet, the one with the colorless eyes had come to her defense not, as she had assumed, to take her himself, but to save her. She felt a curious linkage, a warmth for him, small as a stydil larva, yes, but one that could not be gainsaid.
And so, counter to all logic, she lingered, listening to the drumbeat of her heart. It was she who saw the sacred gyreagle first—The Goddess Mьna's right hand—plummeting down from a sky white and flat with noontime sunlight. She lifted one arm to shield her eyes against the glare and saw the enormous bird heading for the two V'ornn. It was golden, with a pure white crest and a terrible reddish beak used for rending its prey's flesh from bone. By this time, it seemed as if the V'ornn with the colorless eyes had the upper hand. Now she could hear the rapid beat of the gyreagle's wings, see the spread of its curved yellow talons.
The gyreagle struck the V'ornn with the colorless eyes, scoring bloody lines along the right side of his rib cage. He screamed. In what special way had he angered the Goddess? Eleana asked herself. A ques­tion without an answer. Both boys scrambled away, their own pitched battle forgotten. The wounded V'ornn writhed in the shallows, while the other—his friend?—scrambled to his knees, raised his left arm straight as a javelin and, as the gyreagle was gaining the sky, shot it through the heart with one of those hateful metal bolts. Eleana cried out. The majestic bird spiraled to the ground, panting out its last breaths. Another mortal sin among many perpetrated by the V'ornn against Mьna.
In five huge strides the V'ornn had caught up with her. She was paralyzed by the attacks and by the sudden death of the bird. He threw her to the rocky ground and, before she knew what was happening, took her with the deep grunts and loud groans befitting a victorious V'ornn.
I don't want you telling anyone about this," Kurgan warned. "You're thinking of my father's recent prohibition against raping Kundalan females." Annon was bathing the four diagonal gouges the gyreagle's talons had made in his flesh.
Kurgan nursed his swollen side. "Stupid though it is, it's still the law."
The shallows of the creek where they squatted were filled with the shadows of grey rock, the brief swirl of turquoise V'ornn blood in the eddies. Of the tadpoles and the young Kundalan female there was no sign.
"I mean, the Khagggun do whatever they wish in the countryside far from the regent's prying eyes. Or so I have heard it softly spoken."
Annon had heard this as well, but he said nothing. Both boys inspected Annon's wound with growing curiosity.
"I like it not. This is terribly swollen." Kurgan pressed the reddened skin between the gouges. "By Enlil, I think he's left a bit of his claw inside you."
"I guess we had better try to get it out."