"Fancher, Jane - Rings 1 - Ring Of Lightning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fancher Jane S)

it impossible to ride two horses at the same time.
He scratched an expectant chin with one hand, with the
other patted a neck solid beneath a silken black mane . . .
and recalled a scrawny, blond-headed kid and two scraw-
nier foals, and himself and Gerhard bastardizing their bet-
ter sense for a pair of pleading blue eyes.
And Nikki had been right, in his blind-child-luck way.
The twins had lived, and flourished, to become a matched
team any horseman would cherishas the scrawny, blond-
headed kid had grown into a man anyone would be proud
to call brother.
Well, most of the time.
He did look forward to seeing Nikki. His youngest broth-
er's visits to Darhaven occurred far too infrequently these
days, and when Nikki was there, he seemed distracted,
more interested in the library than the horses. Deymorin
suspected their mutual brother Mikhyel's hand in both that
dereliction and that distraction, as in much else that tran-
spiredor didn'tin the boy's life.
Dear, pious, priggish Mikhyel. Sometimes he thought
he'd be perfectly content if he never saw his other brother
again, but if enduring the middle Rhomandi brother's pres-
ence was the price he must pay for time with the youngest,
he'd pay that and willingly to be with the boy tonight.
Boy. Not any longer. Nikki was seventeen now, and le-
gally a manor would be, soon enough, after the an-
nouncements had been posted, the oaths taken and the
Citizen contract signed.
Gods will Nikki's would be a less . . . eventful . . . passage
into adulthood than Mikhyel's had been. He'd lost a
brother that nightten years ago next springthough not
to death. Death would have been easier, cleaner. Instead,
he'd been left with a hard-faced, ambulatory shell that bore
only a superficial resemblance to the brother he'd grown
up with.
He'd lost one brother that night; he wasn't about to lose
a second tonight.
He ran a final, loving hand down each dark grey jowl,
gave Storm's overactive black lip a gentle tug, and returned
to Ringer, hands harboring one final treat behind his back.
They were gathering an audience, he and the big horse;
grooms versed enough in his ways not to interfere before
his signal, and familiar enough with those ways to stand
where they could enjoy the show.
"Well?" he asked.
A black-rimmed ear twitched. The bloodred head with
its narrow blaze drooped low, the long forelock falling
across half-lidded eyes: a picture of equine exhaustion re-
quiring only shuddering sides and quivering knees to com-
plete. Unfortunately for Ringer, his sides moved in long,