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

And below him, on the flank of one rolling hill, he saw a single rider, sitting a single gray horse.
She watched the wagons also, no expression on her fire-scarred face. A big woman, rawboned and
heavy-muscled, shoulders as wide as a man's under a tunic of wolfskin, a shirt of mammoth wool she'd
woven herself on a walking-loom, for who can trust another's luck and goodwill in something that will
abide against one's skin?
Somehow he could recognize her, as even from this height he could count the black spots on prairie hens.
A harsh face, with mocking pale eyes, framed in hair that was white where the fire scars ran up under it.
She sat at ease, her hands resting on her thighs, and when next the Icefalcon looked she was gone.
Blue Child.
Lover of Dove in the Sun, who had died on a hunting raid under his command.
Usurper of his birthright, who had branded him a coward and pulled darkness over the last year of old
Noon's life.
Engineer of a hoax upon their mutual Ancestors that could have cost all the people dearly through the
winter.
And warchief of the Talking Stars People.
Some day, thought the Icefalcon, and I think the day will be soon, there will be a reckoning between us.
The sun called to him, climbing in its splendor at noon. But the air seethed with demons, smoky forms
invisible in the dazzle, and he would be a fool, he thought, to challenge them. So he sought the earth
again, and the warm cave under the cut bank, where Cold Death sat beside his body, murmuring spells to
keep demons and death at bay.
? Chapter 9

"Any change?"
Minalde shook her head. "I tell myself it's better that way," she whispered, though Gil suspected, looking
down at the still bronze face of the man on the bed, that Rudy was beyond being waked. A single pine
knot burning in an iron holder smeared gritty yellow light on the younger woman's features. With no
guarantee how long the siege would last, use of torches and pine knots was kept to a minimum.
There was no need for more light in this room anyway. Ilae came in several times a day to check on her
patient and renew the spells of healing, the spells of warmth that kept him from sinking into cold and
death, but as a mage she could see in the dark. When Alde sat here, as she came in many times a day to
do, she needed no more light than the single lamp could provide.
Even by its forgiving radiance she looked horrible, wasted and white and beaten. Gil knew she kept up a
good face where others could see her. In the Keep they called her brave. Here she wept.
Rudy had been Gil's friend for seven years, since their first unfortunate meeting in the California hills. He
was the final link that held her to the world they both had abandoned, the world neither ever quite forgot.
She had shed tears in this room herself.
"Look, I hate to bug you about this," she said, "but Lord Sketh will die of grief if he doesn't see you. I
can tell him to get lost if you want.
Minalde shook her head and squeezed out the rag that lay soaking in a bowl of scented vinegar water to
wipe down her face. "I'll have to eventually," she said. "My old nurse always told me, 'There's no sense
putting off."'
She got up. When she was working-meeting with the Keep Lords, hearing the endless squabbles and
quibbles that the Keep dwellers brought to her for justice, conferring with the hunters and the wardens of
the hydroponics gardens about the division of food and labor-she dressed in one of several formal
gowns, cut and styled after the fashion they had learned in the days of the Realm's strength to associate
with dignity and authority.
She was so dressed now: train, flowing sleeves, lavish embroidered trapunto- and jewel-work patterns,
though few people in the Keep knew that she took delight in making the gowns herself. The green wool
looked muddy by the smoky light, the red velvet of the pillows behind her like old blood.
"We might as well get it over with." Alde readjusted the elaborate braids of her coiffure, pinned over