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

swallow fast.

He coughed, hacking, wanting to vomit. He was a savage, to
eat so. But what had the Quman left him? They had mocked
him for his preaching, and therefore had taken his book and
his freedom. They had mocked him for his robes, his clean-
shaven chin, and his proud defense of Lady and Lord and
the Circle of Unity between female and male, and therefore
treated him as they did their own female slaves or any man
they considered sheath instead of swordЧwith such indignity
that he winced to recall it now. And they had done worse, far
far worse, and laughed as they did it; it had been sport to
them, to make a man into a woman in truth, an act they
considered the second worst insult that could be given to a
man. Ai, God! It had not been insult but pain and infection
that had almost caused him to die.

But that was all over now. He had run before they took away
his tongue, which truly mattered more to him than the other.

Water eddied along the bank. A hawk's piercing cry made
him start. He had rested long enough. Cautiously he eased
free of the brush, forded the stream, and fell into the steady
lope that he used to cover ground. He was so tired. But west
lay the land out of which he had walked in pride so many
years ago that he had lost count: five or seven or nine. He
meant to return there, or die. He would not remain a Quman
slave any longer.

Dusk came. The waxing moon gave him enough light to see
by as he walked on, a shadow among shadows on the
colorless plain. Stars wheeled above, and he kept to a
westerly course by keeping the pole star to his right.

Very late, a spark of light wavering on the gloomy landscape
caught his attention. He cursed under his breath. Had the war-
band caught and passed him, and did they now wait as a
spider waits for the fly to land? But that was not proud
Bulkezu's way. Bulkezu was honorable in the way of his
peopleЧif that could be called honorЧbut he was also like a
bull when it came to problems: he had no subtlety at all.
Strength and prowess had always served him well enough.

No, this was someoneЧor somethingЧelse.

He circled in, creeping, until in the gray predawn light he saw
the hulking shapes of standing stones at the height of a rise,
alone out here on the plain as though a giant had once
stridden by and placed them there carelessly, a trifle now
forgotten. His own people called such stone circles "crowns,"