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

hundred answering notes of light from the demon-scares on poles and wagon eaves and from the eyes of
the men on guard.
White Mustaches stepped forth. He stretched out his hand to one of the men to whom he had spoken at
the setting of the camp, sitting by the fire among his friends, and somehow the Icefalcon was reminded of
Noon, coming out of the dark with the white shell in his hand.
"They don't like it," whispered Cold Death. "Watch them." Mageborn, she could see better in the dark
than he, but creeping to a higher vantage point in the windy desolation the Icefalcon saw indeed how the
warriors within the wagon circle fidgeted and looked about them and muttered to one another.
Not one slept.
Those not on guard sat up in their blankets, or kept two and three together as close to the fires as they
dared. Though they played at sticks-a game even more simple-minded than the dicing that went on
incessantly in the Guards' watchroom-it was clear none of them gave much attention to the proceedings.
The Icefalcon experienced a momentary regret that he could not slip into the camp and set up a
highstakes game.
The moon rose late, meager as a sickly infant like to die; the muzzy stars watched through slitted yellow
eyes. Between the second and the third hours of the night came the screaming.
The Icefalcon had seldom heard worse, even during the Long Sacrifice.
"Skinning?" he whispered to Cold Death.
"Sounds like it."
Pressed to the earth among the grass roots, he and Cold Death bellied as close to the camp as they
dared. Something moved behind them in the darkness, a wisp of brightness glimpsed from the corner of
his eye. When he turned it was gone-or had never been-but a few moments later the grass bowed in the
starlight where no wind touched.
Demons.
The scream changed. The Truth-Finder must have tightened the screw on the gag.
"Is that how they sacrifice among the mud-diggers?" Cold Death wanted to know.
The Icefalcon shook his head. Out of academic curiosity he listened more closely, trying to sift sound
from sound in the shuffle of hushed camp noise, but could hear nothing now from the black tent.
"The Truth-Finders work for men, not in the service of the Ancestors," he said. "The mud-diggers call
their Ancestors 'saints,' and in the South they sacrifice to them by dedicating gladiators to their names,
making them kill one another and letting these 'saints' of theirs choose whom they will take and whom
they will spare. In the North, in the Keep of Dare, they only promise the 'saints' things, like money or
certain acts."
"But why would their Ancestors want things?" asked Cold Death. "They're dead. And why would they
care what their children do?"
The Icefalcon shrugged. "Their priests explained this to me, but it made no sense. There are those who
will kill a goat, or a pair of pigeons, to these saints, but this they do secretly, and in the North not at all
anymore, pigeons being hard to come by now. When I was in the South, I heard of those who killed
human beings to appease demons or to bribe them for favors."
"You can't get favors from demons." Cold Death glanced over her shoulder, to where something riffled
suddenly at the water down in the coulee, as if a thousand fish had all snapped at once. "They're bodiless,
and you'd have to be a complete fool to trust them."
"People in the South are fools." The Icefalcon shrugged again. "Most people are, if they think they'll get
their own wills."
The bright line slit the night again, a red malignant grin. Vair na-Chandros emerged, leading by the arm a
man who walked uncertainly, like one whose legs trembled, but the Icefalcon was almost certain, as they
passed the fire, that it was the first warrior who had gone into the tent.
Almost certain because the man was bald now and without the mustaches that he had worn. Vair's arm
was around the man's shoulders, and though no words could be distinguished the tone of his harsh voice
was soothing and kind. As far as the Icefalcon could tell the man made no reply.