"Phyllis Eisenstein - Elementals 01 - Sorcerer'S Son" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisenstein Phyllis)

road?тАЭ

He took her hand. тАЬIтАЩll give it.тАЭ

* * *

Rain poured down upon the forest from clouds crowded close above the treetops. On the muddy track
below, a large black horse, tail and mane matted with wet and filth, trudged toward the nearest sign of
life, a high-spired castle overgrown with ivy. The horseтАЩs rider slumped forward over the pommel of the
saddle, one arm hanging limp on either side of his steedтАЩs drooping neck. He was dressed in chain mail, a
mud-spattered surcoat plastered atop the links; he had no helm, and his shield hung by a loose strap,
bouncing against his leg in the slow rhythm of the horseтАЩs walk. On his left side, where the surcoat was
ripped and the chain snapped to make a hole a hand-span wide, blood seeped out sluggishly, easing
down his thigh in a rain-diluted wash.

As they neared the castle, the horse picked up its pace, sensing the shelter ahead. The storm drove from
beyond the fortress, and so there was respite from both wind and wet in its lee. Almost at the arch of the
gate, the animal stopped and bent to drink from a puddle and to crop a bit of soaked grass; its rider fell
then, slid silently off its back and dropped to the mud in an awkward heap.

Inside, warm and dry and surrounded by the things she loved, was Detivev Ormoru, mistress of Castle
Spinweb. She expected no visitors, neither on a stormy night nor a clear one; no one had knocked at the
gates of Spinweb in many years, and she was pleased with that state of affairs. But when the ivy curled in
her bedroom window, when a small brown spider scurried across its tendrils to report a stranger outside,
she was curious. The stranger had not requested entry, had not pounded on the heavy wooden gate or
shouted or beat sword upon shield to attract attention through the noise of the storm, yet why would he
be there but to enter? She looked out her window, but the outer wall was too high for her to see anything
close beneath it. She could have spun a web to view there, but walking would take no greater time, so
she went.

The gateroom was wide, floored with polished stone, and hung with thick tapestries against drafts. Even
so, she felt the storm there. Through a peephole in the carven portal, she saw darkness, streaming rain,
and then, by a flash of lightning, him lying on the ground, the horse grazing nearby. She opened the door.
Her first impulse was to step outside and turn him over with her own hands to see if he were dead, but
she stifled that and sent a few snakes instead, in case he should be shamming with evil intent. The snakes
were not happy to be out in the wet, but they obeyed. They nosed about the body, which did not move,
and they reported it warm and breathing and leaking blood. She waved an arm, and they wriggled under
him, a living mattress, living rollers to move him over the rain-slick grass. They conveyed him through the
door. The horse shied at the snakes, rearing wide-eyed and snorting, and Delivev had to grasp its bridle
in her hands and murmur many calming words before she could coax it inside. She locked the gate
behind it then, locked the storm out and the stranger and his horse in her home.

She led the animal to the roofed-over courtyard that sheltered many of her own pets and left it there with
a mound of towels rubbing it down sans human assistance. She returned to the gateroom to find the
snakes arrayed in a ring about the injured knight, who lay unmoving upon the floor, his limbs at odd
angles, water dripping from his flesh and clothing. A red stain was forming at his left side. Delivev found
the wound quickly, guessed it a mighty sword cut so to cleave through heavy chain mail, and wondered
why the young knightтАЩs opponent had not finished him. Because the linking pattern of the chain lay within
the province of her magic, though the metal itself did not, she scattered it with a nod. His clothing parted
as well, exposing him naked to her ministrations, and while she bound his side she could not help