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

knew he was a coward and a weakling. He could not stand
boldly against the man who had first mocked him, then
violated him, and then wielded the knife.

He could not stand boldlyЧbut he watched, at first numb and
then with a surge of fierce longing for the woman who waited
without flinching. With an imperceptible movement she
opened her fingers. From within her uncurling hand mist
swirled into being to engulf the world beyond. Only the air
within the stone circle remained untouched, tinted with a vague
blue haze. An unearthly fog swallowed the world beyond the
stones.

All sound dissolved into that dampening fog, the whir and hum
of spinning feathers, the approach of the horses, the distant
skirl of wind through grass.

With a sudden sharp exclamation, the woman leaped to one
side. A horse loomed, became solid as griffin feathers cut a
burning path through the mist. In stillness the horse jumped
out of the fog and galloped into the ring of stones, hooves
clattering on pebbles. Bulkezu had to duck so that his wings
did not strike the lintel stone above.

The other riders could be seen as fleeting figures searching
for a portal to enter, yet they were no more substantial than
fish swimming beneath the cloudy surface of a pond. They
could

not leave their fog-enshrouded world. They could i circle.

The war leader quickly scanned the interior of the oiuiie ring,
but the woman had vanished. As he turned his horse in a tight
circle the griffin feathers left sparks behind them in the blue
haze. Of all things in this place, those feathers alone seemed
immune to the witchcraft that had been brought to life.

"Dog!" he called, seeing Zacharias through the haze.
"Crawling one! You have not escaped me!" He nudged his
horse forward, tucked his spear between leg and horse's
belly, and drew his sword. Zacharias shrank back, trapped
against the stone. He had nowhere to run.

But the horse had taken no more than three steps when the
earth began to shake and the huge stones groaned and
creaked and seemed to swing wildly from side to side,
although Zacharias felt nothing at his own back except solid,
unmoving stone. Bulkezu's horse stumbled to its knees,
neighing in terror, and Bulkezu himself was thrown. Stones
swayed as if whatever spell had set them in place was at this