"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 03 - Skybowl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

"I didn't think Alasen would remember the name."
"She didЧand the unfamiliar face that went with it. For a while afterward she thought you were part of Miyon's ambush, until she remembered what you called yourself. 'Sorin's shadow.' "
"I can feel him here," Andry replied softly, glancing around the chamber. "Does anyone else?"
"All of us, all the time." She watched him in silence for a moment. Then, because unexpected questions often brought interesting answers, she said, "I'm not up on shape-changing. Is it difficult?"
Andry was a past master at the verbal parry. Even with a throbbing head, no sleep, and the rigors of a desperate ride behind him, all he did was smile and say, "Not when you've practiced as much as I have the last thirty days. I think you'd find it intriguing."
She ruffled her own hair. "Not that I need much disguise these days. Half the servants at Skybowl and Feruche didn't even recognize me when I arrived."
He inspected her, a little smile dancing across his lips. "You know, I rather like it. You look younger."
"Looking and being aren't even in speaking distance of each other," she assured him. "Go to your bed, Andry. Sleep well."
"Good night."
When he was gone, she reached into a pocket and pulled out a small glinting bit of silver, an earring set with carved white sand-jade. She had searched Meiglan's room earlier but found nothing that was strongly enough hers to use. She had brought little with her from Dragon's Rest, still less on the flight from Stronghold, and packed almost all of it for
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the journey home. Only a lace scarf was left behind, and a horn comb used while she was here. But the lace had spent too much time in the weaver's hands, and Meiglan had probably used the comb on the girls' hair. Sioned would search again. If she found something, and if Pol could settle enough to work ... well, they'd see.
As for the earringЧshe would use that herself, later, to find Kazander.
She had lied some about her own talents with this spell, too.
It was said that the Isulk'im could hide in the wind. Tonight it was true. Twenty-one lean black shadows on black Radzyn horses galloped down a mountain road, the wind-roar in the trees muffling even the thunder of their hoofbeats.
Very suddenly, Kazander reined in. The rest stopped instantly. He turned his face to the sky, where clouds drew swift veils across the stars. Fine tremors shook his body and his eyes turned blank and blind.
In every mind was the same thought: Ros'eltan. The Black Warrior, to whom the Goddess spoke on the wind.
In Kazander's mind was Sioned.
Steady yourself, my lord. It's sheer luck that I found you. Every one of you is a shadow in the darkness. Don't try to replyЧyou're not a Sunrunner and this isn't a Sunrunner spell. Just listen. Chayla is being held forty-five measures from the crossroads ahead of you. Near a place where the cliff road curves around a giant pine, there's a cave almost directly opposite the tree. Ruala recognized it and was very specific. Chayla may still be there tomorrow nightЧthey don't dare travel when there's light for us to work with. But if she's not, she won't be far and traces should be there to follow. Bring her back to us, Kazander. May the gentle Mother of Dragons shelter you beneath her wings.
Then she was gone.
He turned to his fellows, trembling now not with shock but with eagerness. A quick glance at the sky told him there wasn't much of the night left; even if he pushed his men and horses to the breaking, it would be well past daybreak before they reached the tree and the cave.
"Find us a place to sleep," he ordered Visian. "We reclaim
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the lady tomorrow night. Our wise and powerful High Princess has shown me the way."
None of them thought he referred to Meiglan.
Until she saw the glint of eyes in the firelight, Chayla thought they were all asleep. He had set a guard outside, of courseЧpacing footfalls counting off the moments of the night. Four and a pause, four and a pause, maddening as the drip of a water-clock in an otherwise silent room.
He was watching again. The others had staredЧat her blonde hair, her blue eyes, her pale skin. He watched.
She shifted against the stone wall behind her, trying to find a place where rocks didn't jab into her spine. She was as far from them as she could get, as close to the fresh air as he would allow, unable to bear the stink of them. Distance from their odor, however, also meant distance from the only source of heat. After four nights of this, one would think she would stop being so silly. She was cold. She needed the warmth of the fire. It occurred to her that this was a stupid time to develop a squeamish noseЧshe who had been up to her elbows in blood, and sliced into putrefying flesh without a grimace.
What was happening to her was real now. All the time, not just in spurts. The cold was a fact, and her weariness, and trying to keep down the food they gave her. The bread was pungent with mold, the meat so highly spiced to disguise its age that tears streamed from her eyes as she gagged it down. It humiliated her to think they might believe she was crying. She supposed she was lucky they shared their rations with her at all.
Cold, exhaustion, stomach cramps, and the smell of their unwashed bodies. Those things were real. Sunlight was not; she hadn't seen any. Logical. They feared faradh'im, and so moved only when there was cloud cover, and even then kept beneath the trees. If the sun or moons threatened, they built shelters of branches or found caves. Tonight, with the wind blowing hard, Chayla assumed there were no cloudsЧbut they did not travel under starlight, either.
She didn't know how far they were from Ivalia Meadow. The first two days had been real only in sharp jolts like pricks of a knife, and now that she thought back on them she
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knew what a fool she had been to succumb to shock. She was a physician, she knew the symptoms, she should have recognized them and dragged herself out of stunned lethargy.
But she hadn't, and now hadn't the vaguest idea of where she was. Twenty, fifty, a hundred measures in any direction from the meadow.
Not that knowing her location would have done her any good.
She wasn't afraid of himЧof any of them. They hadn't touched her, had been almost polite. They gave her food and water, let her walk off her saddle-stiffness, allowed her decent privacy to attend to her physical needs.
That was the only time he didn't watch her.
The others only looked, fascinated by her strangeness. He was the one who searched beyond the color of her eyes to what might be found within. He was doing it nowЧcatching her gaze, trying to reach into her. She bore it as long as she could, then turned her head away.
The guard came in quickly, nearly treading on her feet, and said something she didn't understand. On the other side of the small fire, he sat up, the blanket crumpling around him. Flames danced off the golden tokens in his beard. A question was asked, answered, and he stood and kicked his companions awake. A harsh order was given and they hurried out into the night.
Chayla scooted to the mouth of the cave. Fire-dazzled eyes saw nothing, but she heard horses, voices. Not even an instant's hope heartened her; they spoke the old language, or their version of it. Whoever these new arrivals were, they had not come to help her.
Levering her chilled body upright, she took a few bold steps outside. A hard hand grasped her wristЧthe first time any of them had touched her since she had been seized in the meadow.
"Let go of me," she said without fear, and tried to shake him off.
But she was hauled down the slope to the road. Someone had lit a torch, and by its light she saw a score of riders on her grandfather's finest horses. Even after so long, the sight of that still made her angry. Goddess, how it made her angry.
She was released, and stood rubbing her wrist. She found him with her eyes, glared at him. He paid no attention.
"Faradh 'reia," he said in triumph to another tall, bearded
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