"Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 3 - Dark Hand of Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

THE DARK HAND OF MAGIC
Barbara Hambly

[19 sep 2002-scanned for #bookz]
[26 sep 2002-scanned for #bookz]

CHAPTER 1
Sun Wolf's capture, as Sun Wolf himself reflected at his execution, was sheer,
stupid ill luck, which Dogbreath of Mallincore would have told him was only to
be expected under the circumstances.
The arrow that brought him down took him high in the back from the shelter of
a pile of stones he'd have bet his last silver bit-which happened to be in his
pocket at the time-couldn't have hidden an emaciated coyote. He hit the sand
of the dry arroyo bed in a second's whirling disorientation and sickening pain
and the next moment got a gritty faceful of gravel, kicked up as his horse
bolted. His first thought was, So much for the King of Wenshar's guarding our
backs.
His second thought, through a descending curtain of gray weakness, was that,
if he blacked out, he was a dead man.
Hooves throbbed in the sand under his unshaven cheek. He made his good eye
open and, with odd, tunneled clarity, saw his partner, Starhawk, spur after
his escaping horse. It was like her, he thought detachedly, watching her lean
from her saddle to grab at the trailing rein, to go after the horse before
ascertaining that he still lived. They had been lovers for nearly a year, but
she'd been a mercenary soldier for eight, and knew precisely how long a ride
it was over the black granite mountains of the Dragon's Backbone to safety.
He knew who'd ambushed them, of course, and why.
Lying in the deep sand of the wash with an arrow in his back, he wondered why
he'd been under the impression that this wasn't the sort of thing that people
had to put up with after they became wizards.
Shirdar warriors, the fast-moving cavalry of the deep desert, were already
coming down the canyon wall, their horses springing down trails for which
goats would have demanded hazard pay. By this time of the afternoon, the
foothill canyons were drowned in dove-colored shadow, though the rim of sky
above was amber-hot. In the burnished light, the warriors' white robes
billowed with dreamy slowness. The Wolf knew he was going into shock and
fought to stay conscious and to keep his breathing slow and deep. He had to
fight, too, not to spring up and make a run for it. Besides making a target of
him-provided he managed to get on his feet at all-with the Hawk as far off as
she still was, it would only waste his strength. Long experience of being
wounded in the battles that he'd spent most of his forty years fighting for
other men's pay told him now that he had none to spare.
Healing spells, he thought belatedly. I'm supposed to be a wizard, dammit.
His mind fumbled at the words to call forth power and to slow the blood
welling stickily between the thick muscles of his back and the scuffed
sheepskin of his jerkin, but the pain of the wound itself clouded his mind and
made it difficult to concentrate. It was a very different thing from healing
others, totally leaving aside the fact that, when he'd worked healing-magic on
others, he hadn't had half a dozen irate warriors getting set to play cat's
cradle with his entrails.