Vampire Mountain. Darren Shan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ clues. Finding none, he returned to where we were standing and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “He was probably attacked by a wild animal,” he mused aloud. “A bear – maybe more than one – caught him during the day, while he was sleeping.”

      “I am not so sure of that,” Mr Crepsley disagreed. “A bear would have caused great damage to the cave and its contents, but only the coffins have been disturbed.”

      Gavner ran his eyes over the cave again, noting the tidy state of the rest of it, and nodded. “What do you think happened?” he asked.

      “A fight,” Mr Crepsley suggested. “Between two vampires, or between the dead vampire and somebody else.”

      “Who’d be out here in the middle of nowhere?” I asked.

      Mr Crepsley and Gavner exchanged a troubled look. “Vampire hunters, perhaps,” Gavner muttered.

      My breath caught in my throat — I’d grown so used to the vampire way of life, I’d all but forgotten that there were people in the world who thought we were monsters and made it their business to hunt us down and kill us.

      “Or maybe humans who chanced upon him by accident and panicked,” Mr Crepsley said. “It has been a long time since vampire hunters aggressively trailed us. This may have been a case of mere misfortune.”

      “Either way,” Gavner said, “let’s not hang around and wait for it to happen again. I was looking forward to resting, but now I think it’s best we don’t cage ourselves in.”

      “Agreed,” Mr Crepsley replied, and after one last sweep of the cave, we retreated, senses alert to the slightest hint of an attack.

      We made our base for the night in the middle of a ring of thick trees, and lit a rare fire — all of us felt chilled to the bone after our experience in the cave. While we were discussing the dead vampire and whether we should search the surrounding area for his body, the Little People returned, carrying a young deer they’d captured. They stared suspiciously at Gavner, who stared just as suspiciously back.

      “What are they doing with you?” he hissed.

      “Mr Tiny insisted I bring them,” Mr Crepsley said, then raised a quieting hand as Gavner swivelled to ask more questions. “Later,” he promised. “Let us eat first and dwell upon the death of our comrade.”

      The trees sheltered us from the rising sun, so we sat up long after dawn, discussing the dead vampire. Since there wasn’t anything we could do about him – the vampires decided against a search, on the grounds that it would slow us down – talk eventually turned to other matters. Gavner asked about the Little People again, and Mr Crepsley told him how Mr Tiny had appeared and sent them with us. Then he asked Gavner why he’d been trailing us.

      “I knew you’d be presenting Darren to the Princes,” Gavner said, “so I located your mental pattern and traced you through it.” (Vampires are able to bond mentally with each other.) “I had to cut up from a hundred miles south, but I hate travelling alone — it’s boring having no one to chat with.”

      As we talked, I noticed a couple of toes were missing from Gavner’s left foot and asked about them. “Frostbite,” he answered cheerfully, wriggling the three remaining toes. “I broke my leg coming here a couple of Councils back. Had to crawl for five nights to reach a way-station. It was only by the luck of the vampires that I didn’t lose more than a few toes.”

      The vampires talked a lot about the past, old friends and previous Councils. I thought they’d mention Murlough – Gavner had alerted Mr Crepsley to the mad vampaneze’s whereabouts – but they didn’t, not even in passing.

      “How have you been?” Gavner asked me.

      “Fine,” I said.

      “Life with this sour buzzard hasn’t got you down?”

      “I’ve coped so far,” I smiled.

      “Any intentions of topping up?” he asked.

      “Pardon?”

      He raised his fingers so I could see the ten scars on the tips, the usual sign of a vampire. “Do you plan to become a full-vampire?”

      “No,” I said quickly, then looked sideways at Mr Crepsley. “I don’t have any such plans, do I?” I asked suspiciously.

      “No,” Mr Crepsley smiled. “Not until you have come of human age. If we made a full-vampire of you now, it would be sixty or seventy years before you were fully grown.”

      “I bet it’s horrible ageing so slowly when you’re a kid,” Gavner noted.

      “It is,” I sighed.

      “Things will improve with time,” Mr Crepsley said.

      “Sure,” I said sarcastically, “when I’m all grown up — thirty years from now!” I rose and shook my head, disgusted. I often got downhearted when my thoughts turned to the decades I’d have to spend on the road to maturity.

      “Where are you going?” Mr Crepsley asked as I headed towards the trees.

      “To the stream,” I said, “to fill our canteens.”

      “Maybe one of us should go with you,” Gavner said.

      “Darren is not a child,” Mr Crepsley answered before I could. “He will be fine.”

      I hid a grin – I enjoyed the rare occasions when the vampire passed a compliment about me – and continued down to the stream. The chilly water was fast-flowing and gurgled loudly as I filled the canteens, splashing around the rims and my fingers. If I’d been human I might have got frostbite, but vampires are a lot sturdier.

      As I was corking the second canteen, a tiny cloud of steamy breath drifted across from the other side of the stream. I glanced up, surprised that a wild animal had ventured this close, and found myself staring into the flaming eyes of a fierce, hungry-looking, sharp-fanged wolf.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      THE WOLF studied me silently, its nose crinkling over its jagged canines as it sniffed my scent. I gently laid my canteen aside, not sure what to do. If I called for help, the wolf might panic and flee — then again, it might attack. If I stayed as I was, it might lose interest and slink away — or it might take it as a sign of weakness and move in for the kill.

      I was desperately trying to decide when the wolf tensed its hind legs, lowered its head and pounced, crossing the stream with one mighty bound. It crashed into my chest, knocking me to the ground. I tried scrambling away but the wolf had perched on top of me and was too heavy to throw off. My hands searched frantically for a rock or stick, something to beat the animal with, but there was nothing to grab except snow.

      The wolf was a terrifying sight up close, with its dark grey face and slanting yellow eyes, its black muzzle and bared white teeth, some five or six centimetres long. Its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth and it was panting slowly. Its breath stank of blood and raw animal flesh.

СКАЧАТЬ