"Clayton Emery - Runesword 01 - Outcasts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

outdoor life. She put her hand against one rocky slope for
balance. It remained quiet. Had she lost them? She couldn't
see very well. The sky was faintly luminous but this ravine
was black as the inside of a bucket. Suddenly she bumped
her nose into another rock wall. An outcropping? She groped
with her hands. No, a turn in the wall. Then her heart sank.

This was the head of the ravine. A rocky wall all around,
a stone box. A dead end. The slopes had to be twenty feet
high on three sides. The only way open was downhill.

Bith jumped at the stone cage around her and found no
purchase. Her fingers were too weak. And she couldn't see
anyway. What to do? Jump like a mountain lion? Fly away?
She almost laughed. Her mind was playing tricks on her.
Nothing useful came to mind. Nothing. The slim giri fell to
the ground and sucked air in great wracking sobs.

She was trapped. Her captors might as well be running up
a tunnel at her. Except they weren't captors. They would kill
her when they caught her, probably tear her to pieces. They

4 RUNESWORD VOLUME ONE

wouldn't even drag her back to the village to burn. Was that
better? She doubled over, fear and fatigue overwhelming her.
She hugged herself and sobbed.

A horned owl brushed overhead with a hoo, startling her.
Had she been asleep? Was that possible? Bith wiped her face
with filthy hands and took a deep breath. She felt strangely
better. She was all cried out. Did that mean she was ready to
die? On the contrary, she was beginning to feel angry. Angry
at these stupid, ignorant people who hunted her for no rea-
son. The peasant girl had died this morning, true, but not
from Bith's lack of care. She simmered with fury until her
ears grew warm. She'd get them if she could, with the black-
est magic she could conjure. But where were they?

She cocked an ear down the ravine and listened. All was
quiet. Crickets chirped far off, the last before the snow.
Somewhere a badger hissed. The air was full of the smell of
leaf mold and crushed teaberries and red sumac. Where was
everyone? Bith rose softly and felt along the stone slope. No
sound. Then she heard them. A thrashing of brush. The gut-
tural growl of men after blood. And a new sound.

Ha-rooooo! Hark. hark'. Ha-roooooo!

Dogs! They'd brought up dogs' She was surely done for