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

sound with her tongue, stood, and turned to face him.

Ai, Lord! She wore leather sandals, bound by straps that
wound up her calves, and a supple skirt sewn of pale leather
that had been sliced off raggedly at knee length. And nothing
else, unless one could count as clothing her wealth of
necklaces. Made of gold and beads, they draped thickly
enough that they almost covered her breastsЧuntil she
shifted. A witch, indeed.

She did not look human. In her right hand she held a spear
tipped' with an obsidian point.

"Come," she said in the Wendish tongue.

It had been so long since he had heard the language of his
own people that at first he did not recognize what he heard.

"Come," she repeated. "Do you understand this tongue?" She
tried again, speaking a word he did not know.

His knees ached as he straightened up. He shuffled forward
slowly, ready to bolt, but she only watched him. A double
stripe of red paint like a savage's tattoo ran from the back of
her left hand up around the curve of her elbow, all the way to
her shoulder. She wore no curved felt hat on her head, as
Quman women did, nor did she cover her hair with a shawl, as
Wendish women were accustomed to do. Only leather strips
decorated with beads bound her hair back from her face. A
single bright feather trailed down behind, half hidden. The
plume shone with such a pure, uncanny green that it seemed
to be feathered with slivers from an emerald.

"Come forward," she repeated in Wendish. "What are you?"

"I am a man," he said hoarsely, then wondered bitterly if he
could name himself such now.

"You are of the Wendish kin."

"I am of the Wendish kin." He was shocked to find how hard; it
was to speak out loud the language he had been forbidden to
j speak among the Quman. "I am calledЧ" He broke off. Dog,
worm, slave-girl, and piece-of-dung were the names given him
among the Quman, and there had been little difference in
meaning between the four. But he had escaped the Quman.
"IЧI was once called by the name Zacharias, son of Elseva
and Volu-sianus."

"What are you to be called now?"