"Godwin, Parke - Firelord 03 - The Last Rainbow UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Godwin Parker)

| tops and covering the skins with turf so that they looked
| like part of the hill itself. And dangerous: their small
|| bronze arrows flew faster and truer than others.
t Owl veered close, saw the girl's dark head lift to
I' follow her gliding path, then flew on, thinking of field
l^mice to eat. These small humans were not as skillful at
H getting as the bigger ones; little wonder there were so few
of them now. Look at her there, staring up at Mother in
the open where any food she hunted could see her first.
[ "Fool!" jeered Owl as the girt looked up and their
^eyes met for an instant. "Foo-foo-fooool . . ."

"Faerie."

Dorelei tasted the sound, the tallfolk word for herself
and Cru. Hard to say, hard to understand, like everything
i about tatlfolk.

"Faerie. Feh-uh-ree."

Cruaddan snuggled closer under the sheepskin robe.
-What?"

Dorelei ran her tongue over Cru's moist lips, teasing
him. It delighted her when they'd just loved each other to
.taste and smell herself on him. "Be us. Tallfolk word for
us."

".. . um." Being a man, love tired Cru more quickly.
He was already floating down the soft darkness toward
sleep.

Well, not all tallfolk, Dorelei corrected herself. The
Atecotti of the northern pastures never used such a word,
but they were almost as old in the land as Prydn. No, it
was a southern word, a Briton-word, first heard this spring
when they came south near the Wall, the long rampart
that divided Briton-men from Venicone Picts. Dorelei didn't
divide them; they were all lallfolk.

More serious, the grass here was no better than at
Skirsa, as they'd hoped. Sheep could manage anywhere,
but their few cattle had to be butchered or traded- There
was always better graze in the valleys, but Venicones kept
. them out. It was always so. The scrubby hilltops belonged

6 ' Parke Godwin

to her people. The lush valleys were taken by the users of
Blackbar-iron.