"Elliott,.Kate.-.Crown.Of.Stars.3.-.Burning.Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

you will serve my cause and not your own."

She grasped Zacharias' hands and licked them clean of
blood, then let him go and indicated that he should stow most
of the feathers in the quiver. She fletched several of her
stone-tipped arrows with griffin feathers, afterward hefting
them in her hand, testing their weight and balance. When she
was satisfied, she went to the eastern portal and began to
shoot, one by one, the riders who circled her sanctuary. At
once they sprayed a killing rain of arrows back into the stones.
She had downed four of them before they truly understood
that although neither they nor their arrows could get into the
circle, her arrows could come out. At last they retreated out of
arrowshot with their wounded. As from a great distance
Zacharias saw them examine the arrows and exclaim over
them while one rider galloped away eastward.

"My tribe will come soon with more warriors," said Bulkezu,
even though he knew by now that the woman did not
understand his words. He had recovered himself and spoke
without malice but with the certainty of a man who has won
many battles and knows he will win more. "Then you will be
helpless, even with my feathers."

"And you will be helpless without them!" cried Zacharias.

"I can kill another griffin. In your heart, crawling one, you will
never be more than a worm."

"No," whispered Zacharias, but in his heart he knew it was
true. Once he had been a man in the only way that truly
counted: He had held to his vows. But he had forsaken his
vows when God had forsaken him.

Bulkezu glanced toward the woman. He could move his neck
and shoulders, wiggle a bit to ease the weight on his knees
and hands, but he was otherwise pinned to earth, no matter
how he tried to force or twist his way free of her spell. "I will
raise an army, and when I have, I will burn every village in my
path until I stand with your throat under my heel and her head
in my hands."

Zacharias shuddered. But he had come too far to let fear
destroy him. Against all hope he was a free man again, bound
by his own will into the service of another. He might be a worm
in his heart, but hearts could change. She had said that all
things change.

"Come, you who were once called Zacharias-son-of-Elseva-
and-Volusianus." She had stepped back from the edge of the