on the shoulder.
“That’s why they sent you off the island, man.” She is a very difficult girl to know, and you, too, you see, and he looked at him carefully.
– Tomorrow we will train through the bull to jump, first through the wooden one. For now, rest.
“I love a bull,” Pret grinned.
“I, too,” Knut sighed.
– You? – Sirac laughed, – three times before the end of the body did not reach and hit, you know what, – Tal smiled.
“You will like it, Ull,” Sirak confirmed his opinion, “your reaction is excellent, I watched you hold on.” You will not need a drink in battle.
– What did you say about the drink? – asked Ull Pala, their mentor.
– It is only after initiation, Ulle. Do not hurry to live, – and he grinned and went to the retinue house, leaving the boys alone.
“Ull,” Tugging at his sleeve, Gong was already looking at him, frightened, “won’t you tell my sister that I climbed my fists at you?”
“I do not understand, you didn’t hit me,” Ull laughed.
“If she is spinning, it means she is chosen,” his friend said with a positive shake of her head, “Here, Ion, whom Kit swallowed, and after a week he was released from the womb, he now studies at the Seven and does not come out of the Mountain.
“I didn’t know,” the boy was incredibly surprised, “about Jonah. Tell me, Gun.
The boy, satisfied with the attention, sat down on a boulder, made a mysterious face, knitted his brows as an adult, he only lacked kithara, and began to tell:
– Seven desperate warriors went hunting for whales on the boat, and the waves did not frighten them, and the blue sea pleased them, and Jonah was among them. They sailed, they sailed, and finally, they saw a huge whale. It was all whales whale – thirty cubits in length, – and he lifted his face to the gray, overcast northern sky.
Sirac and Pret could not stand it, they laughed so much that they even coughed and Tal soothed them, banging his palm on their backs.
“Jonah threw an oak jail, but he didn’t hit,” Gun went on after a pause, “and struck Keith with his merciless tail on the boat, and a strong blue warrior fell into the sea and swallowed his awful Fish Kit. For a long time, brave warriors chased Keith and overtook the monster, and they killed Keith with an enormous spear, dragged the carcass to the shore, cut the belly with a knife in the length of the elbow, and rescued the brave warrior. Then the skin came off him, but a new one grew up, and he is alive and well.
“Yes, a glorious feat,” agreed Ull. But you and I will be glorious warriors, Gun.
– Exactly, Ull. The most glorious.
Soon it was lunch time, then they were instructed in the struggle and reading the runes, then there was dinner, and went to sleep in their cell, opened a tightly worked door, so that the animals would not climb until they were there. The youths entered their cave, passing the corridor closed by fur curtains, inflated the hearth and flooded the stove, trying to keep warm, after a long time the cell was warm, and the students were able to take off their fur clothes. Ull looked at how his new friends looked – and they were dressed like him – the same linen coarse pants and trousers, fur or knitted sleeveless jackets for warmth, and soft boots on his feet.
“You Ull, you hold on a chariot perfectly, and you fight a fist fight, and you understand the letter, all three kinds. And here we are, “Tal added,” for two years here, “Tal was tall and blond, like everyone here, and the head was childishly trimmed, so that only a curl of hair remained, and he had a razor after another.
“And you won’t cut your hair,” added Sirac, playing with a bronze razor.
“Mara does not tell me,” found Ull, smiling broadly.
“Do not meddle with him,” said Gun, “he has a sister in front.
The guys’ faces immediately stretched out, Sirac hurriedly put the razor under the fur blanket.
“You don’t know here,” scratching his shaven head, said Pret, to envy you or to feel sorry for your sister, and he came up and patted Ulla on the shoulder. -Maybe you will see who knows. But on the chariot you are great.It seems the cell was warm, you can go to bed.
– And you’re the twin Ull, everyone is afraid of the twins. They used to say, they even killed, everyone is afraid of prophecies.
“Why are they afraid of me?” Said the boy, shrugging his shoulders.
– The prophecy says that: “The twins will be born from a dead mother, they will take the chosen people into the lands unknown, and will give the laws born by the mountain to other people”
“Tell me something else, Pret,” asked Ull.
Okay, listen. It’s about dactyls, fingers, there are such little people, they live in Alatyr-mountain…
“I didn’t see,” Ull interjected, “and I lived there.”
“I didn’t see it, because small ones, just a finger wide, Lada spawned them in grief, when she leaned on her palm, fingerprints, fingers are still called krts, because nobody sees them, they are notable rounders, everyone knows. Help the elect if Lada orders.
Ull lay, and looked at his fingers, and thought, what small people are, live where Ale, I wonder, does she see them?
“Let’s go to sleep,” said Tal, “will rise early, run to breakfast from morning until breakfast, then shoot from a bow, and we will jump over the bull.”
Ull lay down comfortably, covered with a fur blanket, it was warm and good in the cell, and he soon fell asleep.
He was awakened by the crash of a fist on a wooden door, and Sirac hurriedly went to open the door, which was closed for the night.
“Wash, it’s time for classes, lessons are waiting for you and a vigil,” said the boy, the warrior Gnur, told them, of those with whom he sailed in the same boat. Two more teenagers were standing next to him.
“Get acquainted, this is Arius, and this is Vour,” he first pointed to one and then another teenager Gnur. Arius was taller than Vour, and Vour’s jacket was almost black, and Aria had light brown.
“You are all here and gathered,” Gunur laughed, “all the sons of the leaders here, as Arpad ordered and Seven sentenced. Gunas-Gun from the guns, Syrac from the Sindi, Knut from the Scolts, Vour from the Parsis, and Mansa Pret from the Dan, Tal from the Svei, Arius from the Van.
In turn, six teenagers called their names, lazy voices from a sleep. They all got dressed, covered the embers of the hearth with a stone pot, so that there would be no fire, quickly washing up, youths, now there were seven of them, went to run. We ran for a long time, drowning in snow with soft boots, at first it was cold, but soon Ull got warm, and everyone, too, ran with flushed faces. The youngsters were led by the gun, and set the pace, returned to the cell, rubbed with snow, got dressed, and went to the shooting range. They took their bows and arrows, shooting gloves and shields to protect their left hand from the bowstring. Ahead was the deliberate knight, Gnur, and after him, two by two, marched militarily, which was followed at this time by Sirac, the young students, walking in such a way that they did not break the order, even stepping on crisp snow.
“Stand in a row, between each of three steps,” demanded Gnur dexterously.
“Remove the bows from the irradiation, bend the bow under your foot,” he said, and did what he said, and the youths repeated after him, “now cling the string to the hook first from the bottom,” and hooked the string itself, “and then from above,” and in his hands was already a mighty reinforced bow.
They all stood holding bows in their left hands with a stretched string in fifty steps from