Hard to Be a God Read Free

one.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œWhat’s the big deal? Everyone knows that they’re in love.”
    They stopped talking again. Anton took a look at Anka. Her eyes were like black slits. “Since when?” she asked.
    â€œOh, one moonlit night,” Anton answered cautiously. “Just don’t tell anyone.”
    Anka chuckled. “No one made you talk, Toshka,” she said. “Want some wild strawberries?”
    Anton mechanically scooped berries from her stained little palm and stuffed them into his mouth. I don’t like gossips, he thought. I can’t stand blabbermouths. He suddenly found an argument. “You’ll be carried in someone’s arms yourself someday,” he said. “How would you like if it people started gossiping about it?”
    â€œWhat makes you think I’m going to gossip?” Anka said, sounding distracted. “I don’t like gossips myself.”
    â€œListen, what are you up to?”
    â€œNothing in particular.” Anka shrugged. A minute later she confided, “You know, I’m awfully sick of having to wash my feet twice every single night.”
    Poor old maid Katya, thought Anton. A fate worse than the saiva.
    They came out onto the trail. It sloped down, and the forest kept getting darker and darker. It was overgrown with ferns and tall, damp grass. The pine trunks were covered in moss and the foam of white lichen. But the saiva meant business. Ahoarse, utterly inhuman voice suddenly roared, “Stop! Drop your weapons—you, noble don, and you, doña!”
    When the saiva calls, you have to respond in time. In a single precise motion, Anton knocked Anka into the ferns to the left, threw himself into the ferns to the right, then rolled over and lay in wait behind a rotten tree stump. The hoarse echo was still reverberating through the pine trunks, but the trail was already empty. There was silence.
    Anton, lying on his side, was spinning the little wheel to draw the bowstrings. A shot rang out, and some debris fell on him. The raspy, inhuman voice informed them, “The don was struck in the heel!”
    Anton moaned and grabbed his foot.
    â€œNot in that one, the other one,” the voice corrected.
    You could hear Pashka giggle. Anton carefully peered out from behind the stump, but he couldn’t see a thing in the thick green gloom.
    At this instant, there was a piercing whistle and a sound like a tree falling. “Ow!” Pashka gave a strangled cry. “Mercy! Mercy! Don’t kill me!”
    Anton immediately jumped up. Pashka was backing up out of the ferns toward him. His arms were above his head. They heard Anka’s voice: “Anton, do you see him?”
    â€œI see him,” Anton answered appreciatively. “Don’t turn around!” he yelled at Pashka. “Hands behind your head!”
    Pashka obediently put his hands behind his head and announced, “I’ll never talk.”
    â€œWhat are we supposed to do with him, Toshka?” Anka asked.
    â€œYou’ll see,” said Anton, and took a comfortable seat on the stump, resting his crossbow on his knees. “Your name!” he barked in the voice of Hexa the Irukanian.
    Pashka expressed contempt and defiance with his back. Anton fired. A heavy bolt pierced the branch above Pashka’s head with a crack.
    â€œWhoa!” said Anka.
    â€œMy name is Bon Locusta,” Pashka admitted reluctantly. “And here, it seems, will he die—‘for I only am left, and they seek my life.’”
    â€œA well-known rapist and murderer,” Anton explained. “But he does nothing for free. Who sent you?”
    â€œI was sent by Don Satarina the Ruthless,” Pashka lied.
    Anton said scornfully, “This hand cut the thread of Don Satarina’s foul life two years ago in the Territory of Heavy Swords.”
    â€œShould I stick a bolt in him?” offered Anka.
    â€œI completely