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

Once it grew light enough to see, Gil climbed the rocks two or three times, snow still falling heavily, to lay
out branches and rocks and to carve laborious notches with her footprints in the snow, showing where
they were. She had just returned from gathering more wood when she heard voices on the rocks above.
"Gaw, what a mess," said the familiar backcountry drawl of the Commander-and a heavenly choir of
angels playing the back half of "Layla" on electrified harps couldn't have been sweeter to her ears-"I
thought you said you could chase the snow-clouds out onto the plain, me dumpling."
"They should have gone." Brother Wend's soft voice was puzzled. "It's unheard of for weather to cling
this long after the Summoner has departed. I think ... I'm not sure, but I think there are spells of danger
up ahead as well, avalanche and anger among the beasts of the mountains."
Janus cursed. "Bektis was never that strong," he said. There was a scuffle, and a couple of little
snow-slips tumbled down the rock face. Then Gil saw the black shapes of the Guards, and a couple of
the white clothed warriors of Lord Ankres' company, scrambling down the way she had marked.
Wend knelt beside Rudy and exclaimed in shock, pulling off his heavy gloves at once to weave spells of
healing and stasis over the great burns and cuts on Rudy's face and chest. Meanwhile, Janus and the
others spread out along the frozen stream to cut saplings for a litter.
The Icefalcon's makeshift wall had served to keep the niche under the overhang warm through the night
and into morning, but Rudy's face wore the look of death.
"Don't die on me, man," Gil whispered, in her disused English, as she watched the priest-wizard's fingers
trace again and again the lines of healing and strength over the still, hawknosed face.
She'd have to face Alde, too.
The Lady of the Keep awaited them on the shallow steps of the black fortress, wrapped thick in the
faded rainbow of her coat of quilted silk scraps.
Like a crooked scarecrow, the Bishop Maia of Renweth stood beside her, and on her other side her
friend and maidservant Linnet unobtrusively held her hand.
There were other people as wellthe Keep Lords, and Ilae, and the entrepreneurs who functioned more
or less as neighborhood bosses-but as she walked beside Rudy's litter with the scrag-end of the storm
winds lashing at her face, Alde was all Gil saw.
The younger woman's jaw set, body stiffening, drawing in on itself for protection, when it was clear to her
that Tir wasn't among the returning Guards.
"Rudy's alive," Gil called, as they came near enough for her voice to be heard without shouting. "The
Icefalcon's gone after Bektis and Tir. Tir seems to be all right."
"Thank you." Gil could only guess at Alde's reply by the movement of her lips. Wind lifted the Lady's
hair, a shroud of night, as she descended the steps to grasp and kiss Rudy's nerveless hand.
Undemonstrative herself, Gil did the only thing she could think of to do to help her friend through the
hours of the evening and the night.
She stayed beside her in the cell to which they brought Rudy, a chamber in the Royal Sector whose
round tiled heating stove and larger bed made it more comfortable than the young mage's narrow
quarters off the wizards' workroom on first level south. Neither Ilae nor Wend had had early training in
their craft, both having denied or neglected their talents in the days before the coming of the Dark Ones.
But Wend had, through the years of his priesthood, practiced surreptitiously the healing magic on those
members of the small western community who had been in his care, and both he and the red-haired girl
had seven years of formal teaching.
Together they worked spells of strength and stability on Rudy's heart and nervous system, and of healing
on his flesh, drew runes and circles of power around the herbs they prepared to combat infection.
Through the night Minalde stayed quietly in a corner of the room, fetching water or lint, feeding the fire or
holding the knots on bandages when such things were called for.
Linnet disappeared to look after Gisa, the daughter Alde had borne Rudy in the Summerless Year, who
at eighteen months was old enough to know something was desperately wrong, and to care for Gil's son
Mithrys; Gil remained at Alde's side.
She didn't say much-she had never known what to say to someone in grief or pain-but once Alde