Three from the forest. book 1

Юрий

Александрович

Никитин

f9452e50-2a80-102a-9ae1-2dfe723fe7c7

Трое из Леса

Part I

Chapter 1.

Boromir pulled back the curtain of the bearskin, and the fresh morning air rushed into the hollow. The heavy nighttime smells of overripe wood swayed and sank like bottom fish, carrying away vague visions and fears.

He stuck his head out and, blinded by the bright light, suffocated by the scorching air, stared incredulously at the world. There are fresh prints of wolf paws on the ground, but this is one of their own, but on the tree opposite there are claw marks of a large owl. An unkind sign...

Grunting, he climbed out. The air was fresh and humid, and the trampled earth glistened with dew. Giant trees surrounded the gigantic clearing with a dense wall. The branches above it are intertwined, in the dark greenery it constantly shuffles, moves, bark scales, leaves fall down every now and then, hairs and feathers fall down. Often bloody.

During the night, the ground swelled up in some places, and a green sprout even broke through near the mighty oak tree where Godovit's family lives in a hollow. If it is not destroyed by evening, tomorrow the war with the Forest will be much more difficult....

They've made it, Boromir thought with relief. The biggest concern of his tribe was to live until spring, to the warmth, to the sun, which was rarely seen, but everyone knew that from spring it begins to warm the trees and the ground.

The naked children of Thunderbolt, the Senior Hunter, were crawling out of the pit, which was covered from above with tree trunks and layers of turf. They were followed by the smell of sewage and stench, all covered in a thick crust of dirt, with pale faces, red eyes and swollen bleeding gums. The older ones were in rags of overripe skins, but with the same dried blood on their lips, weak, faded. As soon as they got out, they sat down like crows on a long deadfall, weak legs holding poorly.

The stronger ones hobbled to the River. The ice had long since disappeared, the water was running, jumping over the rocks, clear as a fish, and the children, helping each other, crossed the rocks to the other side of the River. There was just a Forest, the forerunner of an unknown Blackwood, where no human foot had ever set foot, and in this forest, children, without leaving the shore or losing sight of noticeable trees, rummaged through a pile of last year's leaves, found flat onion stalks, young leaves of ferns, nettles, tore and then diligently chewed, feeling like life-giving the drops pour into the weakened corpuscles, supporting the already faded sparks of life. Like goats, they ate the young branches of tallow and hazel, staining them with blood from their gums.

The most lively of them were the first to find nests with eggs in the bushes. There were similar nests in the trees, but after a painful winter, when most of the children died, none of the survivors could climb even a rotten tree. And so, they hurriedly drank the eggs, and the first color rushed to their cheeks, and finally the heart began to pound in their chest, which had completely frozen over the long winter.

We returned home, as it should be, not empty-handed. Everyone carried stalks of edible grass, the roots would be brought later when they got stronger, the elders even dragged dry branches, because the gods do not allow killing a living tree.

Boromir wandered, leaning on a carved staff, from tree to tree, beating the trunks with his staff, they responded with a booming sound, or even sleepy voices. The Magus's dirty gray hair was tied back on his forehead with a strip of skin, his beard fell to his waist, and a thick bearskin hung from his shoulders to the ground. A wide flint knife hung from his belt, but Boromir's main weapon was a carved staff. His magus power was concentrated there, with his help he drove away evil spirits.

And now, sharp eyes, not like an old man's, looked disapprovingly at the hollows and dugouts. People are careless, careless! Anyone can stand up to the beast, but no one puts obstacles in the way of the invisible enemy. We need to cast spells. The enemy is awake, crawling through any crevice!

A child's cry came from the hollow of the Godovit family. Boromir stopped: severity is necessary, but children should not be flogged in vain. Today the children, tomorrow they have to feed their parents, take care of their peace. You should know that the world is strict but fair.

"Oh, Daddy!" a voice was heard. "Oh, I won't!.. Bear, club-footed bear..."

Boromir immediately strode on. The kid forgot the new law that the magi had recently established: don't call Bera, or he'll come, and when his father returned from hunting, he probably ran out shouting: tyatenka, didn't you meet Bera? Like all the peasants in the village, Godovit was not afraid of Bera, if one-on-one, with a slingshot in his hand and an axe in his belt, but ber often walks at night, sneaks to the sleepers through a hollow, and those who live in dugouts rake logs on the roof.

The bear easily strangles the moose and carries it in its front paws, raking the stone-hard, frozen ground in the middle of winter to pull the mouse out of the hole.... Therefore, the Magi ordered Bera to be called a bear, clubfoot, toptygin. Let Bera sleep in his lair, his den, he doesn't know what they're saying about him!

The years would have passed sooner, Boromir thought uneasily. The old people will take the dangerous knowledge to Viri or to the Lizard, the kinship with the bers will be forgotten, and the grandchildren will not even know that they have recently left the animal world. We must cherish the sun drop in our hearts, which was planted by an immortal Family!

"Peace be with the house," he said in a thick, strong voice, slowly and cautiously descending the earthen steps, slimy with dampness, into old Taras' spacious dugout. "May the Chur protect you from the Lizard!"

"Thank the Churu and the bright gods," a cold voice sounded.

It's humid and hot in the dugout, with flat stones driven into the ground in the middle of the trampled earth floor, and large coals still glowing with crimson fire on them. Ominous glare jumps on uneven walls, from which dried roots hang down. Others bulge out powerfully and brazenly, there is a stirring in them, either cold juices are forcefully flowing from secret depths into thick trunks, and from there to branches and leaves, or large worms and beetles in warmth and safety are eating powerfully, rushing to mate and breed offspring.

Ancient grandfather Taras was sitting in front of the hearth, shivering, pressing his back against the warm wall. Taras was wearing a short beaver skin, and with one hand he was trying to pull it up to his chin, while with the other he was hesitantly touching the coals with the last splinter. The oldest in the village, he did not die only because he did not decide who he would become: a brownie or a лешаком. It would be nice to be in the house, you need to keep an eye on the children, but all my hard life I dreamed of getting to bereginyam. I saw one out of the corner of my eye in my youth, my heart sank, but the family, the children, the household, there's no time to look at the sky! Now she's about to be released from her decrepit body... but her soul, too, must have aged. There's a hunt for bereginyami, and no less a hunt for a piece of fried liver that's thrown into the corner of a brownie.

"Boromir," he asked cautiously, "what do the лешаки eat? If there are frogs or leeches..."

Boromir's eyes flashed menacingly, and he struck his staff with a crash on the hearthstones:

"What are you thinking about? You are alive. Help the light gods in the fight against the dark ones! Your club over there is not decorated with carvings, it is not painted with ocher. How can you fight the Enemy without beauty? Babble, Labor..."

"I'm helping," Taras interrupted in a hoarse, cold voice. "Just not a fighter anymore. Be... he broke the bear with his bare hands, like honeycombs, and now..."

"Not a fighter?" Boromir was surprised. "We are all fighters, duelists! If you don't decorate the pot with wavy lines, you'll run out of food, and if you don't dress up, the enemy will get to your heart! And your spoons over there are not painted, the loops on your jacket are broken.... Can you even do that?"

Taras nodded, wrapped himself in the skin, baring his thin yellow legs. Shrunken, huddled under an old hide with threadbare fur, he already looked like a brownie. The Volhv is right, Mara is with her daughters-and the damned one has twelve! — I've killed more than the forest animals. The Magus is right, Mara is with her daughters-and the damned one has twelve! "she's killed more than the forest animals. We must fight back, we must... But the young ones have more strength, and he would have time to decide: a brownie or a лешим? After all, besides the beregin and the леших, the undead roam the Forest, the souls of other dead people. These зайд, who had wandered into the Forest from nowhere, were killed and buried. Now they wander at night, rush out of the dark, drink warm blood. When Taras was young, he crushed leopards and broke Beru's spine, but they say the undead look like big toads, and Taras was afraid of small frogs. Bera's fur is warm, while toads have cold, slimy skin. Even a tiny toad can have big warts, but what can you expect from the undead?

He took a short breath and turned his eyes to the magus. He thundered all over the dugout, menacingly shaking his sinewy arms:

"...to carve everything wooden, tell your friends so! Paint the clay with flowers, where are the daughters-in-law looking? Whether in a hollow or a dugout, it should be clean! But make sure that the garbage is not taken out, but burned in the hearth...."

He paused angrily. The old man nods, but his eyes are far away. His face is like an apple baked in ashes, squinting in a smile. A brownie, they say, is more necessary. Near beregin — for himself, and, they say, he will serve the family as a housekeeper after death, as befits a person. Life, however, will have to be worse, but the soul will be at peace for the children.

Zharook, the eldest, has lived to gray hairs, but he flashes like birch bark. Semenko, the middle-aged one, is even tougher — the first fist fighter, is it far from trouble? The youngest, Vyrvidub, was good at everything, but he died hunting, leaving two children. The grandchildren are quite awkward, especially the eldest, Targitai... Nineteen springs have passed, and he should still be playing the duda and chasing girls! I'll have to be a brownie. He will make sure that the customs of the forefathers are respected, the graves are tended, commemorated on the Holy Day, and relatives, neighbors, and orphans are helped....

"Are the sons hunting?" Boromir barked, rudely intruding on their thoughts.

"Let's go to Neustroikha... Her hollow is falling apart. The men gathered, helping to move into the dugout."

Boromir nodded approvingly. The enemy pushes one at a time, but when people help each other, they retreat, gnashing their teeth!

"And the grandchildren?"

"They are being forested. True hunters."

"Even Targitai?"

Taras lowered his head, avoiding looking the Magus in the eye.

"Also in the forest."

"Hunting?"

"Well... as he can."

Boromir almost cursed, turned around and left as quickly as possible. The hole in the dugout was tightly closed to keep out the hot air.

Taras's dugout, which he expanded by recapturing from the bear, is the most extreme, further into the Forest, where it is always damp and gloomy. The earth shudders when rotten giants fall, the young hungrily crowd over the moss-covered giant deadwood, instead of the sky there are intertwined branches.

The village stood in a bend of the River. In the dry season, the hare jumps over without wetting its paws, but now it's spring, the river is bubbling, carrying spring waters, trees are releasing young branches in front of our eyes, stretching across the River, threatening to step over the stream and regain a piece of land conquered by humans.

Boromir stopped and stared hard at the dark wall of the Forest. To live in the Forest is to see death on your nose. Deer, leopards, lynxes, and in this springtime, the moose or the tur are the scariest of all. There are also many swamps in the Forest, where humans and animals are trapped by the cold paws of ghouls.

Берегинь are almost no shorelines, they are only on the shore, and near the marshes the dark water gradually turns into liquid mud, where all sorts of abominations swarm, then a thick skin of green moss lies on top of the mud, bushes stick out, sometimes one or two gnarled birches. If you step safely, the moss will break through like a rotten hide, and you will sink into the dark, cold water, where there is no bottom. He will be sucked to the underworld, where the fierce Lizard rules the underworld!

A tall and broad-shouldered man came out of the Forest and walked across the River. He looked formidable and strong, with a large deer lying on his shoulders, legs dangling and a horned head. Two flint knives hung from the hunter's short belt, and a heavy axe made of smooth, polished granite gleamed predaciously in a belt loop. The hunter was wearing a soul jacket made of wolfskin with the fur facing out, and his bare arms looked like they were carved from an old dark oak tree. He strode widely, churning the water with his high boots, holding the deer with one hand.

A blond-haired, bright-eyed boy was following the hunter. His eyebrows were raised, his eyes were blue as the sky, and his face seemed surprised. He did not take his nose off his lips, he blew loudly, often fingering his fingers. I almost fell down — I wasn't looking at my feet, but at the broad back.

The Magus looked anxiously at the hunter. The best shooter, a connoisseur of the Forest, a craftsman, but in the village they know that it is not long to live in Мrак among people! Mrak came up, shrugged his shoulders, adjusted the sliding deer. He was heavy, powerful in the shoulders, and his hairy chest was so wide that a leopard could have sprawled on it. Raven-black hair fell to her shoulders, and her eyes were dark, the color of night. A distant relative of the idler Targitai, who plays the duda, but if Targitai is all like a peeled egg, then the Mrak seemed to sleep in the soot. His stern face also looked like it was carved out of oak, pock-marked as if angry birds had pecked him, and there was a noticeable scar on his chin.

He stamped his feet hard, shaking the water off his boots, and nodded to Boromir. A heavy, thick shadow moved behind the Mrak. Boromir noticed long ago that the shadow always follows the Mrak, no matter what day it is, no matter where the light falls from.