"04 - Storm Season (a)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asprin Robert)

Reach, pull. Reach.

Safely in the weeds now, he allowed himself to rest. His head sank completely to
the ground. The dagger slid from its scabbard and he held it point down, hiding
the shine of its blade with his forearm. Trembling from the efforts of his
movement, he breathed through his nose to slow and silence his recovery. Inhale.
Exhale. Wait.

Two figures appeared, patches of black against deeper black, bracketing the tree
against which he had recently lain.

"Well?" came a voice, loud in the darkness. "Where is my patient? I can't treat
a ghost."

"He was here, I swear it!"

Jubal smiled, relaxing his grip on the dagger. The second voice was easy to
recognize. He had heard it daily for years now.

"You're still no warrior, Saliman," he called, propping himself up on one elbow.
"I've said before, you wouldn't recognize an ambush unless you stumbled into
it."

His voice was weak and strained to a point where he scarcely recognized it
himself. Still, the two figures started violently at the sound rising from a
point near their ankles. Jubal relished their frightened reaction for a moment,
then his features hardened. "You're late," he accused.

"We would have been quicker," his aide explained hastily, "but the healer here
insisted we pause while he dug up some plants."

"Some cures are strongest when they are fresh," Alten Stulwig announced loftily
as he strode toward Jubal, "and from what I've been told-" He stopped suddenly,
peering at the weeds around his patient. "Speaking of plants," he stammered,'
'are you aware that the particular foliage you're laying in exudes an irritating
oil that will cause the skin to itch and bum?"

For some inexplicable reason the irony contained in this recitation of dangers
struck Jubal as hilarious, and he laughed for the first time since the Stepsons
had invaded his estate. "I think, healer," he said at last, "that at the moment
I have greater problems to worry about than a skin-rash." Then exhaustion and
shock overtook him and he fainted.

* * *

It wasn't the darkness of'night, but a deeper blackness-the blackness of the
void, or of a punishment cell.

They came for him out of the black, unseen enemies with daggers like white-hot