"Hambly,.Barbara.-.Dragon's.Bane.v2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

the man who had been concealed in the tower fled into
the raw mists, then silence, save for the dying bandit's
hoarse, bubbling sobs.

Jenny dropped lightly from Moon Horse's back. Her
young rescuer was still thrashing in the bushes like a stoat
in a sack, half-strangled on his bejeweled cloak strap. She
used the hook on the back of the halberd's blade to twist
the long court-sword from his hand, then stepped in to
pull the muffling folds of velvet aside. He struck at her
with his hands, like a man swatting at wasps. Then he
seemed to see her for the first time and stopped, staring
up at her with wide, myopic gray eyes.

After a long moment of surprised stillness, he cleared
his throat and unfastened the chain of gold and rubies that
held the cloak under his chin. "ErЧthank you, my lady,"
he gasped in a slightly winded voice, and got to his feet.
Though Jenny was used to people being taller than she,
this young man was even more so than most. "IЧuhЧ"
His skin was as fine-textured and fair as his hair, which
was already, despite his youth, beginning to thin away
toward early baldness. He couldn't have been more than
eighteen, with a natural awkwardness increased tenfold
by the difficult task of thanking the intended object of a
gallant defense for saving his life.

"My profoundest gratitude," he said, and performed a
supremely graceful Dying Swan, the like of which had
not been seen in the Winteriands since the nobles of the
Kings had departed in the wake of the retreating royal
armies. "I am Gareth of Magloshaldon, a traveler upon
errantry in these lands, and I wish to extend my humblest
expressions of..."

Jenny shook her head and stilled him with an upraised
hand. "Wait here," she said, and turned away.

Puzzled, the boy followed her.

The first bandit who had attacked her still lay in the
clay muck of the roadbed. The soaking blood had turned
it into a mess of heel gouges, strewn with severed entrails;
the stink was appalling. The man was still groaning weakly.
Against the matte pallor of the foggy morning, the scarlet
of the blood stood out shockingly bright.

Jenny sighed, feeling suddenly cold and weary and
unclean, looking upon what she had done and knowing
what it was up to her yet to do. She knelt beside the dying