"S. L. Viehl - Red Branch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Viehl S. L)

prostrated herself before the Orb.
Our Queen summoned Gesa into council with the eldest of the Branches.
At the time I was too young to attend, but my mother spoke of it later, along
with a promise to gut me herself if I ever did such a thing.
Gesa admitted that shame had kept her long separated from us. She had
nearly died from the venom, but that wasn’t the shameful part. During her
recovery among the humans, she had gotten so bored that she had mated with
Tal. If that wasn’t disgusting enough, she had conceived and delivered a
halfling. As it was mostly human and male, she left it behind with Tal.
It was a pink, and it squalled, she had told the council. It could not hold
its head still, or walk, or control its bladder or bowels. Then they told me it was
a male. She threw up her hands. They wouldn’t let me eat it. What else could I
do?
It was a delicious scandal – we spinners naturally use our stock males
when we wish to reproduce – and there was some discussion of the state of
Gesa’s mind balance. For the sisters, the thought of voluntary coitus with a
human was, well, revolting.
My mother had warned me from the day I left the nesting caverns never
to trifle with humans. Kill them, eat them if you must, Akela, but never play
with those diseased, mindless things.
Gesa cleansed herself, made contrition and was forgiven by all of us. Any
spinner can fall victim to bizarre impulses, particularly when surrounded by
nothing but blank-brained humans. My own mother had slaughtered two or
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three villages one winter when early snow in the mountain passes had cut her
off from the Garne. Butchering humans, she claimed, had been the only
available form of exercise.
It was Gesa’s halfling that now seemed to concern the Orb, but she had
not explained why. Since our Queen was pure Red Branch – the largest and
deadliest of our kind, with enough strength and poisons to wipe out most of the
sisterhood single-handedly – she didn’t have to. I was the first Black Branch
tracker, sworn to obey and defend the Orb to the death. Even so, it wasn’t my
place to question anything.
I wouldn’t have, had I been among my sisters. We all knew each other’s
minds within the Garnet, and the Orb kept the threads in order. Only out here,
away from the enclave of my kind, did my thoughts wander.
Why send me after a male?
Before I left the inn for Bronif Keepe, I took care of the merc’s body. One
of the advantages of being Black Branch was the variety of poisons my mouth
and body glands produced. I coated the corpse with raze fluid from my
abdominal glands, which quickly broke down the tissues and bones and reduced
it to ash. All the innkeeper would have to do was sweep up the floor.
My ride was waiting for me when I stepped outside, and the humans
passing by the inn gave her a wide berth. Like all darkmares, Neleh was lean,
powerful, and had a vicious temper, so we got along perfectly. I mounted up
and touched her sides with my boot heels, and she took off.
#
Summer heat rolled over the day, and Neleh needed watering, so I