"Janrae Frank - Dark Brothers of the Light 04 - Blood Wraiths" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frank Janrae)

him to dust as surely as a stake through his heart? They swarmed over his arms and legs, pulling at him
with claws like tiny needles, puncturing his dried, papyrus skin with small, razor-sharp teeth.

Hoon shuddered, wishing that he could scream, but his throat and mouth would not work. His
awareness fled into the darkest corners of his mind where his thoughts spun and sped in looping spirals.
Hunger. Hunger. Hunger. The demon-vampire wished for death to free him of it. All of the organs in his
nude, gaunt body had shriveled and dried out like wooden husks within the paper of his skin. His cock
looked like a brittle twig where it lay against his thigh. His ribs stood out, his sinews and his bones lay
bare. Yet his undead soul could not flee its casings.

Four thousand years since he killed her, give or take a few centuries. Six thousand since he and his two
younger brothers, Isranon the Dawnhand and Waejonan had fled the wrath of Willodarus the God of the
Woodlands and Wild Creatures. Waejonan had slain the god's sylvan granddaughter, Melorien: claiming
it was an accident. Hoon and Dawnhand believed Waejonan, and followed him into exile on this
continent out of love for him, where they took wives and settled to build a kingdom. They had thought
themselves wise and worldly: in the end they had been foolish and na├пve.

Gylorean Galee, Willodarus? lover, had been their teacher and their betrayer as she led them into their
betrayals of each other. She made Waejonan the first of the sa'necari, necromancers of great power,
remorseless hemovores wielding all the abilities of the undead and cursed with their appetites. And he
was her favorite. Brandrahoon, as he was called then, she made the first of vampires, demon vampires,
the Lemyari. Only Isranon the Dawnhand had questioned her and refused to become something she
wished. She came to hate him. At her urging, Waejonan had killed him for it.

Once there were three brothers Once there were three brothers. It became a litany in his head.
Every race and nation had some version of their story and it all started out the same, ?Once there were
three brothers: Brandrahoon the vampire; Isranon called Dawnhand, speaker to spirits; and Waejonan
the Accursed, first of sa'necari. And they killed their middle brother and forced his descendants into the
darkness.'

Had there been any moisture left in his body, Hoon would have shed a tear to think of it. Too late he
knew what Gylorean Galee truly was: the sa'nekaryiane, the Mother of Damnation, a fallen hellgod that
always returned to her god box where she waited to be released again upon the world he had unwittingly
been tricked into freeing her and restoring the fullness of her power. Now, she held him captive.

He and his brothers had not known that sa'necari could get into people's minds and make them do things
they would not otherwise do. They had not known that vampires could do such things. Hoon had only
been a vampire for three years when Amalthea helped his brother murder his children. They had not
really understood what it meant to be a vampire or a sa'necari in those days, for there had been none
before them to teach them such things. Hoon had not known, until a year ago no, longer, a year and a
half ago, it was hard to think clearly that Amalthea had been innocent, that Waejonan had taken her
mind. He had not told Timon. It was terrible enough that one of them had to live with such guilt.

Oh, she had betrayed Hoon's bed without a single misgiving, but she had not slain their children of her
own free will. Amalthea wanted immortality and Hoon had refused to give it to her. He suspected his wife
had been sleeping with his brother long before Dawnhand died, before he, himself, died and rose undead.
But the children

The rats came again, bringing his thoughts from the past to the present. Each time there were more of
them than before. The fact that he could not see them made it worse. They swept over him, their claws