creeks, having clasped with hands knees, also did not think of anything.
Yesterday it was going to tear off the life voluntarily. Than
business came to an end, such decisions never are in vain even if
cast their minute rush. And for the Wolfhound it was the purpose to which he
there were eleven years. For the sake of which lived. For the sake of which uncountable number of times
survived. He never thought that he can be there later.
Later?. What for? For whom and for what? "After" simply was not.
Yesterday life came to an end. Further...
The wolfhound sat not movably and looked before himself, precisely in a wall, and in
to the head it was empty, as in the opened grave in which forgot to lower
dead person.
The wizard lay nearby, having substituted sunshine happy
the blind person, - purely washed up, laid on a cover full of holes and in it
wrapped up. Nonvolatile the Mouse, never trusting to strangers, very quietly
sat at it on a stomach and did not think to oppose to attentive fingers,
feeling the torn wing.
To wolfhound was to spit, actually, and nevertheless in soul moved
shadow of idle curiosity. The day before he was sure that he dragged out from
vaults of the ancient aged man, but now saw that was mistaken. Confused
colourless tousle, full dirt and insects, after acquaintance to a root
mylnyanka and the bone comb found in the Wolfhound bag
turned into the fluffy ashy curls which grew in an imprisonment to buttocks.
The wizard everything asked to shear them well, but the Wolfhound refused
flatly. Sitting in a cage, it was pardonable to grow stupid. But not so.
To be released hardly and right there to throw the hair on a potreba of evil spirits and
to angry sorcerers!. Only it was not enough!.
Still it had eyes what the Wolfhound never saw hitherto:
dark-violet, a little brightening to a pupil. When he smiled - and
he smiled often, - in plaza gold, solar sparks flashed. That
to a body, it, despite ugly leanness, was too at all not
senile.
The wolfhound was not going to ask...
The little girl wandered knee-deep in water, dressed up in a spare shirt
Wolfhound with sleeves, unreasonably long for her hands. Toes it
dexterously groped at the bottom last year's water nuts, pulled out them and
put to dry ashore. Nuts were edible and are even tasty, and juice
them was considered as curative. This juice they with the Wolfhound already several times with
the heads to legs covered resignedly suffering wizard. Then
The wolfhound rubbed with it own burns. The little girl wanted to help it, but
it did not allow it.
It was not simply good itself. Because ugly persons at
fifteen-year-old little girls are not in general if only destiny to them
it is any fair. It was incredibly, just unscrupulously
it is good. The wolfhound continually askanced at it. Such it is easy to imagine
conducting a mild chamois on a silk ribbon. Or perhaps and regal
leopard.
To encroach on similar, it is necessary to be the Cannibal really...
Only to think: if yesterday he did not manage to break out under water a rod from
lattices. Or to open a door to the cellar. If policemen were less drunk
also intercepted it on the road upward. If, at last, it missed the mark,
throwing a spear... though is not present, it could not be...
Only to think that now she would fight in paws of the guffawing bastards.
Or a shapeless lump lay somewhere in a closet, tortured to
almost death...
- What smells here of? - suddenly the wizard gave a vote. - Such acquaintance
smell...
The wolfhound long was silent, then answered:
- The bird cherry blossoms.
Here what he did not want, so it to tell at all. In addition to
to speak to all it was sick: the rumpled edges insufferably responded on
each movement, on each sigh.
- A bird cherry, - the wizard repeated and blissfully smiled.
The girl stopped drying one more nut and got out of water:
- To dig to you, mister?
- That you, - were frightened the blind person. - It is live... let blossoms.
Both spoke on-vennski: the wizard - it is very pure, the girl - with strong
southern accent. The wolfhound was irritated by their chatter. He turned away, having been in time,
however, to notice how the girl sat down by the wizard, pulled out a comb and
began to comb and okhorashivat his long beard.
Yesterday the big and strong man nearly remained on certain death in
the vault - well as was not to hang with crying at it on a neck? But
today the help and caress were required for another, and this another was, in difference
from it, he is talkative and kind.
- The wolfhound is right, and the Cannibal is not, - again absolutely unexpectedly gave
voice wizard. He addressed, apparently, the girl, but the Wolfhound even
shuddered - at first from surprise, then from a stitch:
- What?.
He it did not tell the name, it precisely.
- Nothing, - with unfeigned surprise the wizard answered. - Forgive,
if I offended you. I remembered a saying of your people, apparently,
the only thing about the Cannibal... Who are you, the young man?
Any sighted person would not call this word of the Wolfhound. It is interesting that
the wizard would tell if he could see his scars, a gray hair in hair and
the broken nose. There was no wish to answer, and the Wolfhound kept silent. But to get rid
from the former prisoner, in plenty намолчавшегося in a cage, it appeared not so
simply.
- At first, - that continued, - I took you for the robber. When you
returned with the girl, I solved was that you are her relative. But you are with it from
different tribes, and, in my opinion, you to it not the groom. Forgive my curiosity,
the young man, - who you are?
The wolfhound silently turned away. What it gave for that again
to appear alone.
- Well, and you, child? - the wizard asked. - How to call you?
The wolfhound listened.
- Niilit, mister...
The wolfhound decided about himself that this name surprisingly suited it.
Field hand bells on sunset wind: Niilit...
- From where you?
- From Sakkarem, mister... I am an orphan.
It does not happen, the Wolfhound told himself. The orphan is when absolutely,
there is nobody, either the two-family, or the three-family, nor on the father, nor on mother...
when at all there is nobody to intercede.
- My parents died during a pestilence... yes their road will be short and
the bridge is wide, - it continued quietly. - The uncle with the aunt grew up me. They
were kind to me. They wanted to sell me in the wife to the neighbor. Then arrived
dealers in slaves, and me sold to them...
The tribe of the Wolfhound from time immemorial considered sakkaremets dissolute and
disgraceful people absolutely unworthy generous sun, rich earth
and the other unlimited benefits which got to them without anything on that the rights, not
otherwise as through an oversight of Gods. But that so!. That the flesh!. Most
sacred that exists!.
It is necessary to press such relatives.
&
nbsp; - You would like to return there, Niilit? - the wizard asked.
- No, no! - escaped at it. - I want to be with you, mister... and
with you, mister. - It concerned already to the Wolfhound, and touched his lips
curve smile. - Yes the rain to you under legs will spill...
- Pretty we are misters, - the wizard and immediately quietly laughed
recovered: - I am, at least. My name Tilorn.
The wolfhound at first did not believe the ears, and then understood that from long
sitting in a cage that indeed started a little. At the Wolfhound
the human name was not in general, but even nicknames it at all not
would call to any passer. The enemy can deprive of life only a body, and
the angry sorcerer - to drag off soul on desecration. He told, without having restrained:
- Probably, you from Gods! I heard, they are not afraid to tell the names!
- From Gods?. - in blind eyes flickered solar sparks. - No,
that you. I even not the wizard though so someone also calls me. Simply...
my belief learns that to pure dirt does not stick even if to know a name.
Here you with the belief in a cage also pleased, the Wolfhound wanted to tell it,
but did not tell. First, foreign belief - too thin piece to touch it -
sin you will not be gathered. Secondly, with Gods of its own people
there were things worse, than to this Tilorn. Thirdly, to Tilorn dirt,
it seems, really did not stick.
And, at last, all this was to it, the Wolfhound, simply indifferently.
- And you that, brave heart? - Tilorn continued, scratching
to the blinking Mysh under a chin, - I would cure to you a wing. It is necessary
only sharp knife, needle with a silk thread yes of strong wine -
to disinfect...
Here indifference of the Wolfhound disappeared as the fog which is blown off by wind:
- What?.
- To disinfect, - Tilorn distinctly repeated. - You see friend
mine, the infection is an infection which gets to wounds and forces them
to inflame and decay. Strong wine kills her. So,
to disinfect is...
- I ask, really can or fray? - interrupted
Wolfhound. - You are the blind person. And he will go crazy from pain while you sew!
Tilorn slightly shrugged bony shoulders:
- Get what is required, and be convinced. - And after some
added thought with a sigh: - And now, the young man whether you will help me
to rise? Legs, alas, refuse to serve me, and I... m-m-m... did not want
to profane a cover which I was so carefully wrapped up...
The wolfhound bent down and took him on hands, precisely the child. Edges answered
mad pain from which before eyes there were green circles. All right,
not for the first time. And, Gods, not in the last see. It seemed to a wolfhound,
as if it slowly wakened from long, very long dream. Wind was
warm and really bore a bird cherry smell. It is necessary that Mysh flew again.
It is necessary to buy strong wine and silk threads. It is necessary to dress up the little girl
Niilit and get it though an any beads on a neck. At least from
colored glass which pedlars diligent give for halisunsky
sapphires. Yes to feed up this Tilorn in what soul keeps...
The emptiness gaping ahead was gradually filled.
He carried away the sick wise man for bushes, helped to become straight and grumbled:
- Call me the Wolfhound.
Why not to go hiking,
And on feats not to be let,
And not to wander year after year,
If is where to come back?
Why not to set a sail,
Opening the distant countries,
If there is a great trifle -
Protected the homeland behind fog?
Why not to ring weapon,
Finding out points of honor,
If you know: to someone it is necessary,
Someone waits about you for news?
And when the footpath grew
Also there will be no end to separation,
Suddenly will pull cold in a back:
"For what?." Also you will lower hands.
2. 2. CRYSTAL BEAD
Cave. Smoky fumes of torches. The winged shadows which are rushing about under a ceiling.
The blood which splashed walls and a floor.
The tall, bony guy facedown lies on a floor. His hands and leg
are firmly clamped in blocks. The supervisor known as the Wolf rejects
the blood-stained whip, scoops a handful of coarse salt and throws out on
naked back. The guy in blocks writhes, but does not make a sound. Under
his shoulder, having nestled on a human body, sobs from pain and
fear a macrotous black small animal, with the wing which is just broken off by blow
whip.
Blocks in mines were stone, given by bodies a high polish
uncountable and anonymous slaves...
Having shuddered all over, the Wolfhound woke up and understood - business is thin.
Over hills gloomy dawn was engaged. Drops of a rain slipped on edge
bed curtains and loudly flopped in a pool of which wet brands stuck out.
What nice heat they breathed last night. Now heat was not also in
mention.
Around the world there was no more heat, except those pathetic remains that else
remained under an old raincoat... In any case, from that party, where
the shoulder of the Wolfhound rested against a bony back of Tilorn...
Up to a breast and a back goosebumps with might and main walked, the burst blisters undertook
fragile crusts. The gray twilight seemed is dazzling bright and is sick,
to tears, hurt the eyes. The memory of a body which was waking up every time when
To wolfhound happened really badly. The right side became swollen a pillow and
disgustingly ached.
The little girl Niilit slept on other side of Tilorn: black curls,
beaten out from under a raincoat, intertwined with its ashy. Wolfhound
it was carefully removed, sat down, choking with pain, and tucked in bare
woolen fabric that to them it was not chilly.
Nonvolatile Mysh on long usage hung on a strut,
supporting bed curtains. You will fly up soon, the Wolfhound mentally promised it.
The small animal right there opened the shining beads of eyes, with pleasure yawned and again
hid the big-eared head under the aegis. It left a nocturnalism long ago,
having got used to sleep at any time when there was nothing interesting.
The wolfhound got out under a small cold rain and first of all inspected
circle which the night before led round the small camp. In a night
nobody approached this circle, tried to break it. Wolfhound
was lop-sided on a wooden strut, including notches. Two notches - two days.
Today the third.
He knew that the rain will go at night, and took care to stock up with dry
firewood. Cold exasperated the Wolfhound, something in a disgusting way contracted in a breast,
preventing to breathe. It anew kindled a fire, brought waters and hung up over fire
kettle. Once again stepped over a circle and, having bent down, began to collect
very young leaves of a wild strawberry.
Once long ago, long ago the little boy from a genus of the Grey Dog
saw the person who left to the village on skis with a bag behind the back.
This person sat down on snow at a village fence and waited to anybody without talking and not
raising an eye until the communal house left a bols
hukha and, shortly
having asked, did not lead it to gate.
"Who is it?" - the boy asked mother.
"It is the orphan, - mother answered. - It from the tribe of velkh. At it not
remained none of the family. And property - only that in a bag".
All day the boy very much wanted to go to the big house closer
to consider the surprising person at whom - it is necessary! - did not remain
neither relatives, nor the log hut. The orphan - means, do that you want, all
equally nobody will ask the answer. But and any could offend him, not
being afraid of vengeance because there will be nobody to revenge...
And the boy began to think of how it is interesting to be the orphan, but then
remembered how one for the first time went shooting - and it was terrified, having understood that
nobody waited for the orphan from the winter forest home, to the warm center, to a bowl with
Russian cabbage soup.
And in several months, on the eve of that night when the boy is had to
were to name a name, the orphan-velkh battled for seven and sang everything some
the song in the language - sang, did not fall down cut yet.
Truly, velkh had the Song of Death too...
The kettle began to boil. The wolfhound removed it from fire, threw a handful into water
with pleasure smelling leaves, closed a cover and went to wash to a stream.
The kind smell woke Niilit soon. Having seen that the little girl woke up,
The wolfhound got a knife and made one more notch on a strut. Also decided that
today, perhaps, not a sin already and to braid hair. Sons of the Grey Dog
dismissed them only for the big business demanding high
concentrations of spirit. For example, before hunting for a bear.
Or revenge...
Straightening out a shirt, Niilit got out from under a raincoat, bowed
To wolfhound also disappeared in wet bushes. The wolfhound combed hair in two and
braided from each party on a braid, passing locks from below up in a sign
the fact that big business is made. For the ninth day it will braid them differently,
giving made to the past...
- Mister, you got sick, - come-back Niilit, and the Wolfhound told
discontentedly thought that the banging its fever was, it appears, it is noticeable
from outside. It unwillingly raised the head, and the little girl right there gave a hand, -
Bloody Revenge Page 4
