"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 2 - Dragon Token" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

CHAPTER ONE

The rush of wings startled Pol. It was not the sound of dragon wings, strong and sure in the dusk, but the swift feathery strokes of a dozen hawks. Independent like all predators, the hawks clung together now like timid waterfowl fleeing winter. Tiny golden bells on their jesses flashed with the last sunlight as they sought to climb higher and higher into the sky.

Escaped, was Pol's first thought. His second: ReleasedЧand panicked. They don't know where to fly when they're not flown at prey.

Maarken watched, too, absently picking at the crusted blood on his tunic. A mere pinprick in his shoulder, it might have taken him; he had been Sunrunning when the arrow struck his flesh. Only its quick removal had saved his life. "They'll find it hungry living in the Desert. I wonder how they got out of the mews."

Pol steadied his horse as the tired animal stumbled. "Their hoods are gone. Someone freed them." Turning in his saddle, he watched the remnants of an army trudge past. "Maarken. . . ."

"Yes?"

"It hurts."

Faradh'im usually possessed an excellent sense of direction. The scent of Water, the sighing of Air, the sun's Fire, the feel of EarthЧall these things combined to tell a Sunrunner precisely where was where without having to think about it, even in unfamiliar territory.

No one had ever taught Hollis how to discern direction underground.

Elemental presences there were, but she could make little of them. Moisture oozed at intervals from cool, smoothly hewn walls, and a breeze from somewhere bent the candle flames and torches. But it was the profound silence of rock that seemed to change her perceptions of all else, a quiet extending for measures all around her. In the world above, sky made of wind and light arched overhead, and the ground was divided by rivers. Here, Earth had complete dominion. Water slid stealthily from stone, and Air crept past, and even Fire seemed to hunker warily. Hollis did not know where she was, with the familiar balance of forces gone and only one Element surrounding her: brooding, silent, massive Earth.

She had called a halt to their journey through the passage, knowing that while there must be others as unnerved by this place as she, they must also all catch up with each other. They had been walkingЧsometimes up gentle slopes and occasionally a series of four or five steps, but mostly downЧfor what seemed like years. Hollis' only indication of the time was the fat candle Betheyn had taken from a storeroom, one of those marked with dark lines and made to burn in precise time to the levels of a water clock. It had descended five lines of the nightЧor at least what was night up above. Here there was always darkness.

The idea made her shiver slightly. She refused to think about it, just as she refused to think about Rohan and Sioned and Chay and Pol and most especially Maarken. And about the weight of the Earth pressing all around her, stifling Air and Fire and Water.

"Hollis?" Beth's soft voice was welcome distraction. "Take this, please?"

She was given the wide, round candle. It was down to nearly the sixth line; past midnight, she thought, although she couldn't be sure.

"You should try to sleep, Beth. I can help, if youЧ"

"No, but thank you. I'm going to go back and make sure all the stragglers have caught up." Betheyn's thick

plaits had come undone, and she scraped the dark hair from her face with a bruised hand. "Maybe you'd better use some of your Sunrunner magic on Chayla, though. She's up front making her third round of the wounded. She looks ready to drop."

Hollis nodded, and the younger woman threaded her way amid the people crowding the passageЧslumped with their backs to the stone, curled up in sleep, holding injured limbs at awkward angles, lying flat on stretchers with spouses or children or friends watching over them. Hollis went farther up the narrow tunnel, searching in the gloomy golden glow of torchlight for her daughter's fair head.

Chayla was bent over a litter, applying a fresh dressing to a sword-slashed leg. A fingerflame of Sunrunner's Fire hovered at her shoulder. Hollis wondered when she had learned to do that. Then she realized that it wasn't Chay-la's Fire at all; it belonged to Camigwen, who knelt beside Chayla with the coffer of medicine.

"Jeni, if you can spare a moment?" Hollis said quietly, and Alasen's daughter looked up. As another little flame appeared, Jeni relaxed and allowed her own to fade. Rising as if she were seventy instead of seventeen, she shook long brown hair from her face and waited for orders like a good soldier.

Chayla hadn't even glanced up from her work.

Hollis drew Jeni aside. "I'd like you to watch Jihan and Rislyn so their mother can get some sleep."

"Of course. I think I saw them somewhere up front."

"How did they get there? They were almost the last through."

Jeni's smile, for all its weariness, held her father Ostvel's quick humor. "With Jihan wanting to lead the way into the magical maze, can you wonder?"