The Seven Altars of Dusarra читать онлайн

on the leathery brown hide of his jaw. He was inhumanly tall and correspondingly broad. He was, in short, not human, but overman. His long-fingered hand, with its oddly jointed thumb and opposable fifth finger, grasped the guidehandle of his mount's harness, an unnecessary precaution; his warbeast was trained to obey verbal commands or the pressure of its rider's feet, and moved with such feline smoothness that there was no danger of dislodging its master. The creature was blacker than the night sky, and as silent; its golden eyes and polished fangs were the only discernable features. It stood the height of a man and, from its stubby whiskers to lashing pantherlike tail, measured a good eighteen feet. Its triangular ears were up and alert, but it gave no warning growl. Accordingly, the overman raised his arm in the signal to advance and led his companions over the final ridge and down onto the plain. His warbeast moved with silent catlike grace, its great padded paws disturbing not a single stone; the rest of the party was not so circumspect. There were four in the party, all grown overmen, but only the leader rode a warbeast; his three followers made do with yackers, the universal beast of burden of the Northern Waste. Each rode upon one of the ugly creatures and led another heavily laden with the goods they hoped to trade in Skelleth. There was something slightly ludicrous in the stately dignity of the overmen as they perched stiffly upright upon the broad backs covered with ropy, matted brown hair, and guided their beasts with finely tooled silver bits in slobbering black-upped mouths full of uneven yellow teeth. The yackers' hooves rattled on every pebble, it seemed, and there was a constant snorting and rumbling fro