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

stallion-trotted off to join Afraid of Flowers. They wouldn't go far.
From the top of the rise they could see Vair na-Chandros and his party.
It was a considerable train, especially in these times. Each of the twelve wagons was pulled by a team of
mules. No wonder the Talking Stars People are interested, thought the Icefalcon. Remounts, relief teams,
and a small herd of sheep followed, under a heavy walking guard; the sun glinted off their bowtips and
spears.
Vair na-Chandros himself rode up and down the length of the line on a black horse, the Icefalcon
remembered that the man always chose blacks.
He was helmed and armored as for war, a scarf of scarlet and blue wrapped over the spiked helm, and
the silver hooks that had long ago replaced his severed right hand were concealed by the billowing cloak
of white wool.
He was much as the Icefalcon recalled him, elegant and dangerous to the soles of his gold-stamped
boots, and the deep, hoarse bark of his voice brought back the cold wind under the Keep walls as the
remnant of the armies of the Wathe trained with their flamethrowers for the assault on the Nest: the smell
of the fog that last morning, assembling to march to the flooded ruin of Gae to meet the Dark.
The shrieking of men in darkness as they were devoured. "Ninety-eight men," remarked the Icefalcon,
resting his chin on his hands and peering thoughtfully through the long stems of the needlegrass on the
ridge. (The Talking Stars People did not deal in estimated numbers.) "And more than a thousand sent to
besiege the Keep that they cannot hope to take. What is he hunting here?"
Cold Death shook her head. Wind shimmered silver and dark in her wolf-hide tunic. "All I know is that
I've tried to scry into that tall wagon there, the one with the guards walking on both sides, and cannot."
"Another Wise One?" The Icefalcon knew that the Wise could not scry one another. He didn't like the
idea of trying to get Tir away from two.
"It could be. If so, it is a power I have never seen. Even in daylight I see around it a sicklied glow, like
marshfire but dimmer." She worked herself back down the slope until they could follow the ridge line
without being seen. They walked along the slope of the hill like the shadows of birds, paralleling the train.
"You say that this Keep, this fortress, cannot be taken?"
"It was built long ago by the Ancestors of the mud-diggers," said the Icefalcon. "The Ancestors of the
Wise Ones had devices of magic, as if Wise Ones themselves were made of crystal or gold,
indestructible and able to be used like tools by other Wise Ones. Vair na-Chandros visited the Keep
seven summers ago and knows there is no way for human armies to break its walls. Yet you tell me he
has sent the greater part of his force east to do that very thing, and he is not a stupid man.
"He is if he thought a girl he wedded against her will would forget the experience when she came to
womanhood."
There were times when Cold Death reminded him of Gil-Shalos. "He appears," said the Icefalcon dryly,
"to have been educated in that respect."
A few hours' further travel brought them to rolling upland prairie, where the wagons formed a circle into
which the cavvy was driven. The Icefalcon observed the guarded wagon carefully, but saw no sign of any
Wise One riding within.
The sheep were pastured nearby under heavy guard. Three riders went out with arrows and spears,
circling upwind of a small cluster of bison grazing at the foot of one of the hills, riding like fools in a group.
The Icefalcon, lying wolflike in the grass, shook his head and said, "Two arrows says they stampede
them."
"I may be your sister, but I'm not a fool," grinned Cold Death. "You keep your arrows, and I'll keep
mine. They've been trying to kill bison since they crossed Summer Water Creek. They'll get deer, though,
in the coulee, if the Empty Lakes People don't ambush them there."
The coulee that wound away to the east, dotted thick with aspen and cottonwood, was the logical place
for the Empty Lakes People to be camped. The Icefalcon said, "They won't ambush the scouts. If it's
Barking Dog's hunt, they'll attack the camp at midnight."
"Only fools would try to attack them here," protested Cold Death. Through the screening grasses Vair