"Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 1 - The Ladies Of Mandrigyn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

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CHAPTER

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HAT IN THE NAME OF THE COLD HELLS IS THIS?" SUN

Wolf held the scrap of unfolded paper between stubby fingers that were still slightly stained with
blood.

Starhawk, his tall, rawboned second-in-command, glanced up from cleaning the grime of battle off
the hilt of her sword and raised dark, level brows inquiringly. Outside, torchlight reddened the
windy night. The camp was riotous with the noise of victory; the mercenaries of Wrynde and the
troops of the City of Kedwyr were uninhibitedly celebrating the final breaking of the siege of
Melplith.

"What's it look like?" she asked reasonably.

"It looks like a poxy proposition." He handed it to her, the amber light of the oil lamp overhead
falling over his body, naked to the waist and glittering with a light curly rug of gold hair.
Starhawk had been fighting under his command for long enough to know that, if he had actually
thought it nothing more than a proposition, he would have put it in the fire without a word.

Sun Wolf, Commander of the Mercenaries, Camp of Kedwyr below the walls of Melplith, from Sheera
Galernas of Man-drigyn, greetings. I will be coming to you in your tent tonight with a matter of
interest to you. For my sake and that of my cause, please be alone, and speak to no one of this.
Sheera.

"Woman's handwriting," Starhawk commented, and ran her thumb consideringly aiong the gilt edge of
the expensive paper.

Sun Wolf looked at her sharply from beneath his curiously

2 Barbara Hambly

tufted brows. "If she wasn't from Mandrigyn, I'd say it was the local madam trying to drum up
business."

Starhawk nodded in absent-minded agreement.

Outside the tent, the noise scaled up into a crescendo. Boozy catcalls mixed with cries of
encouragement and yells of "Kill him! Kill the bastard!" Between the regular troops of the City of
Kedwyr and the City's Outland Militia Levies, a lively hatred existed, perhaps stronger than the
feeling that either body of warriors had toward the hapless citizen-soldiers of the besieged town
of Melplith. It was a conflict that the Wolf and his mercenaries had stayed well clear ofтАФthe Wolf