"Raymond E. Feist - Darkwar 1 - Flight Of The Nighthawks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

boy to fall over backwards, sitting helpless as he waited.
Pug saw the dark army of the Dasati marching towards him, emerging from waves
turned black by the hateful thing in the sky. He slowly rose, balled his fists and stood
defiantly, yet he knew he was helpless. He should be able to do something, but He
was only a boy, not yet fourteen summers old, not even chosen for a craft, a keep-boy
without family or name.
Then, as the nearest Dasati warrior raised its sword, a malevolent cry of triumph
sounded, a bell-like clarion that brought the child to his knees. Expecting the blade to
fall, Pug watched the Dasati hesitate. Behind it, the wave - now taller than the tallest
tower in the keep at Crydee - also seemed to pause for a moment, then it came
crashing towards him, sweeping up the Dasati before bearing down upon the boy.
'Ah!' said Pug, sitting up in bed, his body drenched with perspiration.
'What is it?' asked the woman at his side.
Pug turned towards his wife, sensing more than seeing her features in the darkness
of their sleeping chamber. He calmed himself and said, 'A dream. Nothing more.'
Miranda sat up and put a hand on his shoulder. With the briefest gesture she brought
every candle in the bed chamber to life. In the soft glow from the candles, she saw the
sheen of moisture on his skin reflecting the flickering light. 'It must have been quite a
dream,' she said softly. 'You're drenched.'
Pug turned to regard her in the warm glow. He had been married to Miranda for
more than half his life now, yet he found her a constant mystery and occasionally a
challenge. But at moments like this he was grateful she was close at hand.
Their bond was a strange one for they were two of the most powerful practitioners
of magic on Midkemia and that alone made them unique to the other. Beyond that
their histories had intersected before they had met. Pug's life had been manipulated by
Miranda's father, Macros the Black, and even now as they lived together, they
occasionally wondered if their marriage might not have been another of his clever
plots. But whatever else, in each other they had found a person who could under-stand
their burdens and challenges as no one else could.
He got out of bed. As he crossed to a washbasin, and soaked a cloth in the water,
she said, 'Tell me of the dream, Pug.'
Pug began to clean himself off. 'I was a boy, again. I told you about the time I
almost drowned on the beach, the day Kulgan's man Meecham saved me from the
boar.
This time I didn't get off the beach, and the Dasati rose from within the storm.'
Miranda sat up and moved back, resting her shoulders against an ornate headboard
Pug had given her years before. She said, 'The dream is understandable. You're
feeling overwhelmed.'
He nodded, and for a brief instant in the soft light of the candles she glimpsed the
boy he must have been. Those moments were rare. Miranda was older than her
husband - more than fifty years his senior, but Pug carried more responsibility than
anyone else in the Conclave of Shadows. He rarely spoke of it, but she knew
something had happened to him during the war with the Emerald Queen years before,
during the time he had lingered between life and death, his body a mass of burns from
a mighty demon's magic. Since that time he had changed, he had become more
humble and less sure of himself. It was something only those closest to Pug saw, and
then only rarely, but it was there.
Pug said, 'Yes, I feel overwhelmed. The scope of things . . . makes me feel . . .
insignificant at times.'
She smiled, got out of bed and came up behind her husband. Over a hundred years