"Ed Greenwood - Band of Four 04 - The Dragon's Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

on hilts, to watch their prisoner narrowly.
He stared right back at them, his expressionless gaze almost a challenge. As
Craer started to swing the cell door closed, the torch already behind him and
the darkness coming down, the procurer saw the captive wizard's mouth tighten
in angry anticipation of whatever taunt Craer might leave in his wake.
Craer shook his head, and said as gently as a nursemaid, "I wish you well,
Arkle Huldaerus."
The heavy cell door boomed, and the Master of Bats was alone with the chill
darkness. Not a kingdom many would choose to rule.
He waited, listening intently for the scrapes of their boots on stone to the
away, as the darkness grew both heavy and deep around him.
And waited, growing used to the small, faint sounds of his new home. The
whisper of seeping water flowing down stone, the slight echoes his own
breathing awakened. And waited.
When at last he judged that time enough had passed, and young and triumphant
overdukes of the kingdom couldn't possibly have patience enough to still be
lingering outside the cell door of a prisoner they knew to be helpless, Arkle
Huldaerus murmured the word that released a spell he'd cast a dozen years
backтАФand held ready from that day to this, through all the tumult since.
"Maerlruedaum", he told the darkness calmly, and patiently endured the
creeping sensation that followed. Hairs pulled free of his scalp and slithered
snakelike up his imprisoned limbs, to the place on his left shin where the
legging under his boot had been so carefully soaked in his own blood: a place
where that dark fabric was already stirring and roiling, rearing up ...
Three bats lifted away from his manacled body, whirring reassuringly past
his face at his bidding, and the Master of Bats smiled into the darkness.
There was a jailer's slot in that door, to let someone outside peer in at
prisoners, and in a moment or four his three little spies would be out and
about in the cellars of Flowfoam, watching and prying. He'd have to take great
care to keep them unseen as he saw where the little thief Delnbone returned
those keys to, but thтАФ
Sudden fire exploded into his mind, and in its shattering pain he felt first
one bat, and then the next, torn apart. Desperately he tried to claw at the
last one with his will, snatching it back fromтАФfromтАФ
"Not so subtle after all, Master of Bats," Embra Silvertree whispered in his
mind, as the last of his bats flared into oblivion. "I barely had time to get
comfortable out here."
Furiously the manacled wizard thrust out at the sorceress with his will,
seeking to hurl her out from behind his eyes, but the magic that had lanced
into him, leaping back along the links of his own casting, seared agonizingly
wherever it went, and he was failing, quailing.. .
"I'm not here to melt you witless," the lady baron said crisply, "or to
bring you torment, HuldaerusтАФjust to relieve you of all the magics you have
ready to work mischief with. My thanks for providing so swift a road into your
mind. This at least means I can leave you wits enough to remain yourself, and
able to work magic in years to come."
"Mercy," the chained wizard hissed, his voice thin with warring fear and
hatred, "I... I beg of you, wench!"
"Most charmingly begged, to be sure. Rest easy, Huldaerus. I'm not here to
work you any personal harm, just to do away with any other little surprises