"Tracy Falbe - The Rys Chronicles 1 - Union of Renegades" - читать интересную книгу автора (Falbe Tracy)

angry when he caught her riding, but the exhilaration and freedom of
sitting high on the horse had always been worth the risk. After a brief wish
to have that feeling again, Miranda pushed away memories of better
moments. She belonged to Barlow now.
Miranda patted the horse one more time before joining her children in
the stall. Weariness pulled Miranda quickly into sleep, but her fears knew
no rest. In her slumber she heard a rumble in the hills, and she imagined a
heavy spring thunderstorm heralding the heat of summer.
Suddenly she was in the courtyard of Droxy with her children, and the
walls of the fortress loomed around her like a dark and dirty canyon. A
booming sound shook the stone walls like pebbles, and Miranda fell
screaming to the ground, desperately clutching her children. The screams
of people flew around the courtyard like a distressed flock of birds.
Miranda jumped up and started running. Moving was difficult as if
weights were tied to her limbs. Each step seemed to take a tortuous
amount of time, and after managing a few, Miranda realized she no longer
held ElendraтАЩs hand.
Horrified, she looked back and saw soldiers swarming around her
shrieking daughter. Black armor clad the strange attackers, who wielded
black swords. Blood and sweat streaked their distorted faces. One swung
wide with his obsidian blade, felling Elendra. The girlтАЩs blood sprayed in
an arc as she toppled to the cobbles.
Her little body made one gruesome twitch, and she gurgled one
mouthful of blood before her life lifted away from a growing pool of red.
Flames consumed the fortress on all sides, and the apish soldiers seized
Miranda when she rushed crazily toward her daughter. Esseldan was torn
from her embrace, and a soldier thrust a pike through the tender body of
the infant and flung him into a fire.
Screaming, Miranda watched her son sail through the smoky air into
the greedy flames. Darkness seeped over the hellish scene and Miranda felt
cold air against her skin. The sinister heat of the war flames dissipated
and the soldiers released her arms. She sat up screaming, but the fact that
it was a nightmare brought her little relief.
Her children stirred next to her, and Miranda lay back down before
they woke up. Sweat cooled on her face in the mild spring night, and it felt
blissful after the terrible heat of the flames. But with the noises of the
refugee packed town around her, she experienced again the acute emotion
of the nightmare. The Atrophane Horde was coming and Droxy would be
crushed. The Atrophane were going to kill people in the process, and
maybe even her children.
Miranda tightened her arm over her children until they fussed from the
grip. Murmuring for them to go back to sleep, she accepted the gravity of
the danger. They needed to hide outside Droxy. The fortress would be the
target of the Atrophane Horde, and Miranda reasoned that the
countryside would be safer.
She hated Barlow for forcing them to come to Droxy. She knew concern
for their safety did not motivate him. Bitterly, Miranda hoped that when
the Atrophane came they would capture Barlow and make a slave of him.
This pleasant concept almost brought a smile to her lips, but then the
back door of the tavern burst open, startling the horses in the stable. As if