"Doranna Durgin - Wolverine's Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Durgin Doranna)

arrived at the wall. Inside, the buildings crowded close; they were square-built things of timber, wattle,
daub, and whitewash, their roofs as much shingled as thatched.

Kelyn took a deep breath, noted that the wall workers weren't paying the least attention to her, and
moved into the town with the same long, easy strides that had carried her across Atlia.

That was her first mistake. Fine for the outskirts of the town, such a pace was nearly impossible once
she was among the people in the marketplaceтАФto her eyes, a huge, impossibly crowded area where no
person could possibly sift out and locate the specific goods they wanted, especially not amidst the bright
canvas tenting the tops and sides of the stalls. After stepping on a number of heels and barely rescuing
her own toes from the solid wooden wheels of an oxcart, Kelyn choked back her strides. These people
must not really have anywhere to go, to meander as they did.

Then again, neither did she.

She paused to look at a vendor's collection of nuts, none of which she had ever seen before, and her
grumbling stomach convinced her that when she finally earned some coin, this place would be the first at
which to spend it. Why, she could try a different type every day and take half a moon going through
them!

The vendor eyed her expectantly, and she spread her empty hands at him; he promptly ignored her. It
was his intense gaze on something behind Kelyn that prompted her to turn. Through the stream of people
passing by, she deciphered the form of a short woman and the man who was dragging her down the
street by her arm. Her face was streaked with tears, and she kept tripping on her long tunic-dress,
resisting him every stride.

"Why does that man drag her?" Kelyn asked the nut vendor, careful with the new language. He eyed
her, assessing her accent and reassessing her appearance, and then shrugged. Kelyn tried again. "If she
doesn't want to go with him, why doesn't she fight him?"

At that, he grunted, pointedly looking up and down her tall frame, her rough, untailored tunic and simple
pants. "She'sno savage, you. What's her strength to his?"

Kelyn traded her stare between the vendor and the altercation edging its way down the street. A
particularly strong yank dragged the woman through a pile of baskets, and she shrieked, almost falling,
while the owner of the baskets picked up her own cry of protest. The man shouted something back, not
hesitating in his progress. And the nut vendor watched, obviously interested, but just as obviously not
about to move.

"Why doesn't anyone help her?" Kelyn asked. "Is she being punished?"

He gave her a hard look. "Because we know how to mind our own business. You do the same, you
want to get along in these lands."

Baffled, Kelyn just looked at him. Would she stand by and let one of her companions be mauled by a
rock cat, or gored by one of the territorial mountain goats? Survival of the fittest was the rule of the
mountains, but everyone got into trouble sometimes. Where would she herself be now, if Iden and Frykla
hadn't come to her aid at the house? With a scowl for the nut vendor, she flicked her cloak back over her
shoulder and went after the couple, going past the man to stop behind him and stand squarely in his path.