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

A fire iron was seized like a sword, wielded viciously against the dying hearth. Sioned waited him out. When he set the poker back into place, it rattled with the shaking of his hand.
"I'm sorry." His voice was subdued. "None of that was fair, or true."
She said nothing.
"I don't know what to do, Mother." He spoke to the dim flames. "I can't ride out to find them if I don't know where they are. Walvis has sent people out from Skybowl to search. Everyone who can is looking for them when there's light enough. Ruala came close to being shadow-lost last night, did you know that? I'm doing all I can think to do and it's not enough. They have my wife, my little girl. What they really want is me. That's what I have to give them."
"On their terms? The sacrificial prince?"
"If necessary."
"Don't be a fool!" she exclaimed, her voice rough with fear.
He didn't hear her. "They're savages," he said to the fire. "Barbarians. If I offer myself, if my death would satisfy them so we'd be left in peaceЧ"
"It wouldn't. You know it wouldn't." She shook her head, still surprised not to feel the weight of her hair, to feel instead the swift tousle of it around her cheeks and neck. "We don't have any evidence that it would. We don't even know who these people are!"
"Don't we? What about their battle cry?" He turned suddenly to face her, his body like a rope yanked taut. "MotherЧwhat if I reveal myself as diarmadhi? What if I claim to be something besides the Azhrei?"
"Andry would love that, wouldn't he!" she snapped. "Not to mention all the people who believe with him that sorcerers are evil! What would you do, Pol, proclaim yourself rightful ruler of the Vellant'im, a prince of savages? Even if you succeed in taming them, who would accept a High Prince to whom the enemy bows down in homage instead of in defeat?"
For a moment he looked as if he might argue. But then all the tense energy drained out of him and he bent his head. "You're right, of course."
64
Melanle Rawn
SKYBOWL
65
Sioned's knees went a little weak with relief. She sat on the window seat and folded trembling hands in her lap. "I understand, Pol. You're looking for anything that will get Meiglan and Rislyn back. But you can't offer yourself in their places, and you can't make some wild claim that might or might not work."
"Then tell me how, High Princess."
"I don't know," she replied, damning her helplessness.
"That's not the answer I need to hear."
"It's the only one I have."
He began to pace, but not with the usual supple quickness. Each step was heavy, almost hobbled. "So we wait like Father always did, and see what solution presents itself? This isn't politics, Mother, it isn't someone's scheme of power. These are the lives of my wife and child! I won't be pushed until the only way out is of Vellanti making!"
She bent her head. There was nothing more to say and they both knew it. After a time Pol stopped pacing and looked down at her.
"You were up all last night, and now most of this one," he said colorlessly. "Go get some rest."
Sioned pushed herself to her feet. At the door she paused with her fingers on the dragon's head handle. "Pol, this "is about power. They didn't take your wife. They took the High Princess."
"She's not like you," he answered in a muffled voice. "She's tooЧ"
"Gentle? Sheltered? Not like your ruthless motherЧeither of them?" she snapped. "Meiglan ordered her own kinsmen executed without blinking an eye. The action of a High PrincessЧbrutal and necessary. Just like me. One of the few real privileges of the position and its power is to do what you have to in order to make the world the way you want it to be."
"Oh, and I can do that by waiting for other people to force me into actions I never chose?" He laughed bitterly.
"You can do it by not acting before you know what will come of it! Let's say they made a ritual sacrifice of youЧ let's even say they were satisfied and sailed back where they came from! Who would be High Prince then? Andry? He's got the bloodline and he's got Goddess Keep and all the Sunrunners behind him. Is his world of rituals and sins the one you want to make for your children?" She flung open
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the door. "You just think about that for a time, High Prince!"
Jihan' began screaming sometime after midnight. It was dawn before Pol soothed her back to sleep.
Her cries still echoed in Pol's ears as he climbed wearily to the battlementsЧlike his father, seeking a dragon's perch. His dragon curled in the sand far below him, not appreciating this change in position. Usually it was Azhdeen who looked down on Pol.
There was light enough to weave, to communicate. Pol didn't use it. How could he ask the dragon to fly the morning sky, searching for Meiglan and RislynЧwho were with those who would kill Azhdeen and call themselves glorified?
Yes, I'd risk even you if I thought it would do any good, he thought, watching the tentative sunrise shine on golden hide. / doubt you'd understand. Hatchling dragons are lost all the time. As for femalesЧif one leaves, there are always othersЧ
He balked at that thought and shook his head at the injustice. No, because Meiglan and Rislyn are part of me, you'd want them back as much as I.
"But there's nothing I can do," he said aloud. Just to hear someone say it. Frustration choked him, but he forced himself to repeat it. "Nothing!"
They were searching every way they knew, everywhere they could think to look. But the Vellant'im weren't stupid. They knew to stay out of usable light. They knew their safety was in darkness and clouds.
Azhdeen roared, wings spreading wide. Even without a connection between them, the dragon was sensing emotions that confused him. Pol hesitated a moment too long in turning for the stairwellЧ
ЧrageЧfireЧkillЧtalonripЧbastardsЧbloodclawЧfuryЧ MeiglanЧrendfleshЧswordthrustЧRislynЧhatchlingЧavenge defend KfLL-
The dragon's shriek deafened him. He was lying on his side on the stones, twisted, his hip and shoulder bruised. He pushed himself upright, gulping air, sick to his stomach as he realized how easily he could have tumbled over the ramparts to the Desert below.
66
Melanie Rawn
SKYBOWL
67
Azhdeen was skybora, still bellowing his furyЧand Pol's. A primal emotion; familiar. Of human guilt and fear and pain, he understood nothing. Pol sat there in mute bewilderment, bereft of the rage that had kept him functioning. In the clear soft light of dawn, he sat there on the cold stones and cried.
There was a point beyond which the brain refused to sustain its connection to the body. Chayla had seen it happen a hundred times. Pain simply stopped registering as the mind sought protective oblivion from the unbearable. Chayla had watched for it, knowing she could set broken bones, clean the worst wounds, ply suturing needles as necessary without worrying about the patient's agony. But once the mind reawakened, pain returned tenfold, as if avenging itself for the denial. Capable physicians gave pain-killing drugs before that happened.
She didn't remember when her mind had abandoned her body. But there was no soothing, numbing potion to ease the rejoiningЧalthough memory efficiently provided the names of several suitable to her need, according to a purely professional evaluation of her injuries.
The inventory was not all that bad, really. No broken bones, though the ribs were badly bruised. There were more bruises and some torn muscles along back and shoulders. Weals on breasts and thighs. A cut lip that had nearly stopped bleeding. A mild throbbing at the back of her head where it had struck the ground hard. Not much blood there. Not much blood at all, exceptЧexceptЧ