The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читаем книги онлайн бесплатно TXT) 📗
At that moment the creature's eye was drawn by Whirlwind's shining grey coat, and it accepted Fenn's challenge. It hurled itself at them, grunting, snorting and pounding the earth with its great hoofs. Fenn touched the colt's neck and they jumped into full gallop. She was twisted in the saddle to judge the distance between the point of the horn and Whirlwind's flying tail. When they drew a little too far ahead, she held Whirlwind back to let the gap close and to urge the beast on.
Despite his fear for her safety Taita could not help but admire her skill and nerve, as she led the animal in front of Meren at close range.
He loosed three arrows in rapid succession, and all flew in behind the shoulder to bury their full length up to the fletching in the thick
grey hide. The animal stumbled and Taita saw bloody froth spray from its mouth. At least one of Meren's arrows had pierced a lung. Fenn led the beast on, skilfully bringing it round in a circle under Meren's poised bow and forcing it to expose its other flank to him. He shot and shot again, and his arrowheads went deep, raking through the heart and both lungs.
The beast slowed as its lungs filled with blood. The lethargy of death transmuted its mighty limbs to stone. At last it stood, head hanging, blood pouring in rivulets from its open mouth and its nose. Nakonto raced in from the side and drove in the point of his spear behind its ear, slanting the blade forward to find the brain. The body dropped with such weight that it jarred the earth and raised a cloud of dust.
By the time Taita reached them they had all dismounted and were gathered around the carcass. Fenn was dancing with excitement and the others were laughing and clapping. Taita was determined to punish her defiance by sending her back to the galley in disgrace, but as he dismounted, stony-featured, she rushed to him and jumped up to throw her arms round his neck.
'Taita, did you see it all? Was it not splendid? Were you not proud of Whirlwind and me?' Then, before he could deliver himself of the harsh rebuke that scalded his lips, she pressed her lips to his ear and whispered, 'You are so kind and good to me. I do love you, darling Taita.'
He felt his anger deflate and he asked himself ruefully, who is training whom? These are the arts she perfected in the other life. I still find myself defenceless against them.
The hunters had killed more than forty large animals, so it was a few days before all the carcasses could be butchered, the meat smoked and packed aboard the barges. Only then could they board the galleys and continue the voyage southward. When That was back with his officers he became aloof and unapproachable once more.
Watching him with the Inner Eye, Taita saw that he was regretting their conversation and the disclosures he had made. He was fearful of the consequences of his indiscretion.
The wind veered into the north and freshened. The galleys shipped their oars and hoisted large lateen sails. White water curled under their prows and the shore flew by on the starboard side. On the fifth morning after the hunt they reached the mouth of another tributary. Coming
down from the high ground to the west, it poured an enormous volume of water into the lake. Taita heard the crew talking among themselves, and the name 'Kitangule' bandied about. Clearly that was the name of the river before them. He was not surprised when the captain ordered the sail to be lowered and the oars run out once more. Their galley led the flotilla into the Kitangule and pushed against the mighty flow.
Within a few leagues they had come to a large settlement built along the riverbank. Here, there were shipyards with the unfinished hulls of two large vessels lying on the slipways. Workmen swarmed over them, and Taita pointed out the overseers to Meren. 'That accounts for the foreign design of the ships in this squadron. All must have been built in these yards, and those who built them are unmistakably from the lands beyond the Indus.'
'How came they to this place, so far from their own land?' Meren wondered.
'There is something here that attracts worthy men from afar, like bees to a garden of flowers.'
'Are we bees also, Magus? Does the same attraction entice us?'
Taita looked at him with surprise. This was an unusually perceptive idea from Meren. 'We have come here to fulfil a sacred oath made to Pharaoh,' he reminded him. 'However, now that we have arrived we must be on our guard. We must never allow ourselves to be turned into dreamers and lotus-eaters, as it seems so many of these Jarrians are.'
The flotilla sailed on up the river. Within days they had encountered the first cataracts of white water that blocked the river from bank to bank. This did not daunt That and his captains, for at the foot of the torrent there was another small village, and beyond that extensive cattle stockades, which held herds of humped oxen.
Passengers, horses and slaves disembarked on to the bank. With only the crews still on board, the vessels were hitched with heavy ropes of twisted liana to teams of oxen and dragged up the chutes of fast water.
Ashore, the men and horses climbed the track that ran beside the cascade until they reached higher ground. Above the cataracts the river was deep and placid, and the galleys rode lightly at anchor. All embarked again, to voyage on until they reached the next waterfall where the procedure was repeated.
Three times they came to falls too steep and furious to permit the vessels to be dragged up them. Egyptian engineering genius was evident in the extensive works that circumvented the obstacles: a zigzag series of channels had been dug alongside the falls, with locks at each end and
wooden gates to lift the vessels to the next level. It took many days and much labour to bring the flotilla up the water ladders, but eventually they were in the deep, gentle flow of the main stream once more, i Since leaving the lake, the terrain they had passed through was fascinating in its magnificent diversity. For a hundred leagues or so after they had entered the Kitangule, the river ran through dense jungle.
Branches almost met overhead and it seemed that no two trees were of the same species. They were festooned with lianas, other vines and flowering creepers. High in the canopy, troops of monkeys squabbled noisily in gardens of flowering orchids and fruit. Glistening monitor lizards sunned themselves on branches that overhung the river. At the approach of the boats they launched themselves into the air and fell to hit the water with a splash that showered the men at the oars.
At night when they moored along the bank, tied to the trunks of the great trees, the darkness was loud with the cries and scuffling of unseen animals, and the roars of the predators that hunted them. Some of the crew set fishing lines in the black water, the bronze hooks baited with offal. Three men on one line struggled to pull out the huge catfish that seized the bait.
Slowly the vegetation along the banks changed as they climbed up through the cataracts. The sweltering heat cooled and the air became more salubrious. Once they had negotiated the final water ladder, they found themselves in an undulating landscape of grassy glades and open forests dominated by many species of acacia - leafless and thorny; covered with soft, feathery foliage; with vast black trunks and dark boughs. The tallest were decorated with bunches of lavender fruit hanging like grapes from the high branches.
This was a fertile, well-watered land with lush sweet grass filling the glades, and dozens of streams joining the main flow of the Kitangule.
The plains swarmed with herds of grazing animals, and not a day passed when they did not see prides of lions hunting or resting in the open. At night their thunderous roars were terrifying. No matter how often they heard them, the listeners' nerves jangled and their hearts raced.
