"Barbara Hambly - Darwath 5 - Icefalcons Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

sometimes, and ... and remember? Or think you remember but you don't know what it is?"
"Like what, honey? Here, you, Akula," she called out, and all three of the guards turned their heads.
"One of you go fetch me water from the spring would you?"
The men stared at her, scorn in their faces, for in the Alketch men do not take orders from women.
Bektis snapped, "Do as she says," and all started off in search of the boiled-leather pail that had hung,
filled neatly with potatoes, on the second donkey's pack saddle. Watching their aimless movements, it
occurred to the Icefalcon that none of them were very bright.
"Like this." Tir nodded toward the rolling wonderment of green beyond the scrim of birches. They had
left the great slunch beds behind them, and for the most part the land was as it had been since the world's
dawn: long grass bright with spring, widely dispersed clumps of rabbitbrush, the dark lines of treetops
marking stream cuts sometimes sixty feet below the level of the surrounding plain.
"It smells like something ... One of those other people was here once." "Those other people" was how
the boy thought about his ancestors, those memories of ancient days.
"Only it was in the winter, I think," went on Tir softly. "Everything was brown. Did Oale Niu come here?"
"She did that." Hethya settled back on her hunkers, and her voice changed again, slowed and deepened,
as she said, "I was here. Twelve of us rode down from the flanks of Anthir mountain. The mages ringed
our camp with a circle of flames to keep the Dark Ones at bay."
Tir frowned. Even from this distance, the Icefalcon saw in the set of his shoulders, the stance of his
compact body, the memory of distant things. "He was here with his daddy," he said, so softly the
Icefalcon almost could not make out the words. "His daddy knew the way. The road was that way, north
toward the mountains, by those little hills."
Two of the warriors came back with water; Bektis gave them very exact instructions about mounting
guard on the camp, things that to the Icefalcon seemed obvious.
The Icefalcon slipped back among the trees, carefully picking hard and sheltered ground, and crawled
snakewise on his belly through the grass to the bison wallow that he knew from other days lay just south
of the road. Bandits-or more likely the Empty Lakes People, whose spirit wands he had seen twice in
these lands-would be along in the morning.
And they were.
The Empty Lakes People didn't attack until nearly noon, but the Icefalcon was aware of them when they
came up the coulee to the northwest as a redstart and a raven flew out of the trees. They waited there for
a time, for the party in the grove to pack up and move on.
When Bektis and his group didn't pack up, but rather collected more firewood and water, like people
who planned to remain where they were for the day, the Empty Lakes People-being the Empty Lakes
People-decided that the thing to do was attack rather than make a closer observation of the grove, in
which case they'd have seen that there was a Wise One in the party and thought again about the idea. Or
maybe not. These were the Empty Lakes People, after all.
In any case they attacked, with predictable results. The Icefalcon heard a cry from the wooded hill, and
Hethya's scream. The woman always seemed to be screaming.
A man broke cover on the eastern side of the hill and ran across the road with his deer-hide jacket in
flames. He fell in the long grass. Another warrior rode full-tilt out of the grove on a dun-colored mare that
reared in sudden terror at something it saw but the Icefalcon didn't.
Illusion. There were amulets against such spookery on the mare's bridle but clearly Bektis' powers were
greater than the amulets' maker, and since the Dark Ones' systematic destruction of mages, many of the
talismans had outlived their effectiveness years ago.
One of the black warriors pelted from the trees and grappled briefly with the warrior, dragging her down
from her horse. She cried out in terror and pain, and struck at something-again illusory-in which moment
the black man plunged his sword into the woman's chest.
She fell, coughing blood. A war-dog, probably hers, raced from the trees, coat blazing, crying and
yipping in pain.
In the grove other shapes were running around or struggling in the trampled underbrush of wild grape and