"Dragonlance - Deathgate Cycle 07 - The Seventh Gate - uc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deathgate Cycle)

Vasu stood on the wall and waitedЧhopefullyЧfor their return.

The River of Anger, which flowed beneath the city walls of Abri, was frozen. Its water had been frozen by their enemies, by spells cast on it. The hideous dragon-snakes had turned the river to ice in order that their troops could cross more easily.

Clambering down the rock-strewn sides of the river-bank, Marit smiled grimly. The tactics of her enemy would serve her.

There was just one small problem.

"You say this was done by magic?" Hugh the Hand, sliding down the bank behind her, skidded to a halt be-

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WEIS & HICKMAN

side the black ice floe. He jabbed at it with the toe of his boot. "How long will the spell last?"

That was the problem.

"I don't know," Marit was forced to admit.

"Yeah." Hugh grunted. "I thought as much. It might end when we're standing in the middle."

"It might." Marit shrugged. If that happened, they would be lost. The rushing black water would suck them down, chill their blood, grind their bodies against the sharp rocks, fill their lungs with the black and now blood-tinged water.

"There's no other way?" Hugh the Hand was looking at her, at the blue sigla tattooed on her body.

He meant, of course, her magic.

"I might be able to get myself across," she told him. Then again, she might not. She was weakened in body from yesterday's battle, weakened in her spirit from yesterday's confrontation with Lord Xar. "But I'd never be able to manage you."

She set foot on the ice, felt its cold strike through to the very marrow of her bones. Clamping her teeth together to keep them from chattering, she stared at the far shore and said, "Only a short run. It won't take us long."

Hugh the Hand said nothing. He was staringЧnot at the shore, but at the ice.

And then Marit remembered. This man, a professional assassin, afraid of nothing in his world, had come across something in another world he did fearЧwater.

"What are you scared of?" Marit jeered, hoping to bolster his courage by shaming him. "You can't die."

"I can die," he corrected her. "I just don't stay dead. And, lady, I don't mind telling you, this sort of dying doesn't appeal to me."

"It doesn't appeal to me either," she said snappishly

THE SEVENTH GATE

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back at him, but she noticed she wasn't going anywhere, had hurriedly snatched her foot back off the ice.

She drew in a deep breath. "You can follow or not, as you please."