"David Zindell - Requiem of Homo Sapiens 01 - The Broken God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zindell David)

the storms would come and kill him. 'Ahira, Ahira,' he said
aloud, to the sky, 'where will I find food?' This time,
however, his doffel didn't answer him, not even in silence. He
knew that although the snowy owl has the most far-seeing eyes
of any animal, his sense of smell is poor. Ahira could not tell
him what to do.
 And so Danlo and his dogs began to starve in earnest. Even
though he had eaten well all his life, he had heard many
stories about starvation. And instinctively, he knew what it
is like to starve – all men and animals do. When there is no
food, the body itself becomes food. Flesh falls inward. The
body's various tissues are burnt like seal blubber inside a
sac of loose, collapsing skin, burnt solely to keep the brain
fresh and the heart beating a while longer. All animals will
flee starvation, and so Danlo sledded due
52
east into another storm, which didn't last as long as the
first storm, but lasted long enough. Bodi was the first dog to
die, probably from a stroke fighting with Siegfried over some
bloody, frozen wrappings he had given them to gnaw on. Danlo
cut up Bodi and roasted him over the oilstone. He was surprised
at how good he tasted. There was little life in the lean,
desiccated meat of one scrawny dog, but it was enough to keep
him and the remaining dogs sledding east into other storms. The
snows of midwinter spring turned heavier and wet; the thick,
clumpy maleesh was hard to pull through because it froze and
stuck to the runners of the sled. It froze to the fur inside
the dogs' paws. Danlo tied leather socks around their cracked,
bleeding paws, but the famished dogs ate them off and ate the
scabs as well. Luyu, Noe, and Atal each died from bleeding
paws, or rather, from the black rot that sets in when the flesh
is too weak to fight infection. In truth, Danlo helped them
over with a spear through the throat because they were in pain,
whining and yelping terribly. Their meat did not taste as good
as Bodi's, and there was less of it. Kono and Siegfried would
not eat this tainted meat, probably because they no longer
cared if they lived or died. Or perhaps they were ill and could
no longer tolerate food. For days the two dogs lay in the
snowhut staring listlessly until they were too weak even to
stare. That was the way of starvation: after too much of the
flesh had fallen off and gone over, the remaining half desired
nothing so much as reunion and wholeness on the other side of
day.
'Mi Kono eth mi Siegfried,' Danlo said, praying for the
dogs' spirits, 'alasharia-la huzigi anima.' Again, he brought
out his seal knife and butchered the dead animals. This time he
and Jiro ate many chunks of roasted dog, for they were very
hungry, and it is the Alaloi way to gorge whenever fresh meat
is at hand. After they had finished their feast, Danlo cut the
remaining meat into rations and put it away.