"Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth 3 - Blood of the Fold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goodkind Terry)

followed on her heels as she dashed across the pitching deck. Hands gripping the
lapels of his coat, the helmsman stretched his neck to see what the trouble was.
Lantern light came through the opening at his feet, showing the faces of the
four men manning
rhe tiller. Sailors gathered near the bearded helmsman, and stood gawking at the
six women.
Ulicia gulped air trying to catch her breath. "What's the matter with you slack-
jawed idiots? Didn't you hear me? I said to turn this ship around!"
Suddenly, she fathomed the reason for the stares: the six of them were naked.
Merissa stepped up beside her, standing tall and aloof, as if she were dressed
in a gown that covered her from neck to deck.
One of the leering deckhands spoke as his gaze played over the younger woman.
"Well, well. Looks like the ladies have come out to play."
Cool and unattainable, Merissa regarded his lecherous grin with unruffled
authority. "What's mine is mine, and not anyone else's, even to look upon,
unless I decide it is so. Remove your eyes from my flesh at once, or have them
removed."
Had the man the gift, and Ulicia's mastery of it, he would have been able to
sense the air about Merissa cracking ominously with power. These men knew them
only as wealthy nobility wanting passage to strange and distant places; they
didn't know who, or what, the six women really were. Captain Blake knew them as
Sisters of the Light, but Ulicia had ordered him to keep that knowledge from his
men.
The man mocked Merissa with a lecherous expression and obscene thrusts of his
hips. "Don't be standoffish, lass. You wouldn't of come out here like that
unless you had in mind the same as us."
The air sizzled around Merissa. Blood blossomed at the crotch of the man's
trousers. He squealed as he looked up with eyes gone wild. Lightning glinted off
the long knife at his belt as he yanked it free. Yelling an oath of retribution,
he staggered ahead with lethal intent.
A distant smile touched Merissa's full lips. "You filthy scum," she murmured to
herself. "I deliver you into the cold embrace of my Master."
His flesh burst apart as if he were a rotten melon whacked with a stick. A
concussion of air driven by the power of the gift slammed him over the rail. A
bloody trail traced his course across the planks. With scarcely a splash, the
black water swallowed the body. The other men, near to a dozen, stood wide-eyed
and still as statues.
"You will all keep your eyes on our faces," Merissa hissed, тАЬand off everything
else."
The men nodded, too appalled to voice their consent. One man's gaze
involuntarily nicked down at her body, as if her speaking aloud what was
forbidden to look upon had made the impulse to view it impossible to control. In
ragged terror, he began to apologize, but a focused line of power as sharp as a
battle axe sliced across his eyes. He tumbled out over the rail as had the
first.
'Merissa," Ulicia said softly, "that will be quite enough. I think they've
learned their lesson."
Eyes of ice, distant behind the haze of Han, turned to her. тАЬI will not have
their eyes taking what does not belong to them."
Ulicia lifted an eyebrow. "We need them to get back. You do remember our