"Briggs, Patricia - Sianim 2 - Steal the Dragon.text" - читать интересную книгу автора (Briggs Patricia)

"If you can't find one, you might try Midge's girls. I suspect that one or two of
them might have something that would work."


"I thought you said you didn't pay for it," she teased.

Laeth grinned. "I didn't."

Rialla flashed him a smile. "I just bet you didn't. I'd best go see who I can find to
take over my horses while I'm gone."

"Go to it," he said. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

The early morning sun barely lit the sky when Rialla saddled a horse and took it
out. She wasn't the only one working horses, but the other riders were using
different arenas.

Her stallion's feet thump-thumped rhythmically on the packed sawdust of the
enclosure, but his attention was on the mare that was being ridden over the jumps on
the other side of the fence. He gathered himself in preparation to dump his rider as
he had thrown so many othersЧand got tapped warningly with the short crop his
current rider used.

Reminded that he had to obey this upstart who sat on his back, he continued on
the path she chose, with his ears plastered as flat as he could get them. Rialla
laughed at the plodding canter that replaced the stallion's normally buoyant gait.

He really didn't need the workout. She'd found trainers for all the horses she'd
been working on. Rialla had taken the stallion out for a last ride rather than wait
around for Laeth and worry about things that she couldn't changeЧ like the gold,
black and green tattoo that graced her scar-less face once more.

Taking advantage of her momentary distraction, the red-bay stallion threw
himself sideways in a move that had tossed more than one of his former owners.
Rialla sat it easily. With a disgusted snort the big horse flipped his tail and settled
back into his canter, insulted that she hadn't even noticed what he'd done.

Rialla put the horse through his paces until he quit playing and she was tired
enough that she forgot about what she had agreed to do to herself. The memory
lapse didn't last long. When she took the horse in to give it a much-deserved
rubdown, Laeth was waiting for her in the stables.

"Are you ready to go?"

Rialla nodded and handed the horse off to one of the grooms. "Let me change
my clothes and grab my stuff and I'll meet you back here."

In her room she slid over her head the simple gray slave's tunic that she would
wear for the journey. She looked at herself in the flat piece of polished copper that