"Hambly, Barbara - Dragon's Bane UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

and the bandit had struggled. The frosty daylight glinted
on a sharp reflection among the leaves. The spectacles
she found there were bent and twisted out of shape, the
bottom of one round lens decorated by a star-fracture.
Flicking the dirt and wetness from them, she carried them
back.

"Now," she said, as Gareth fumbled them on with hands
shaking from weakness and shock. "You need that arm
looked to. I can take you..."

"My lady, I've no time." He looked up at her, squinting
a little against the increasing brightness of the sky behind
her head. "I'm on a quest, a quest of terrible importance."

"Important enough to risk losing your arm if the wound
turns rotten?"

As if such things could not happen to him, did she only
have the wits to realize it, he went on earnestly, "I'll be
all right, I tell you. I am seeking Lord Aversin the Dra-
gonsbane. Thane of Alyn Hold and Lord of Wyr, the
greatest knight ever to have ridden the Winterlands. Have
you heard of him hereabouts? Tall as an angel, handsome
as song... His fame has spread through the southlands
the way the floodwaters spread in the spring, the noblest
of chevaliers... I must find Alyn Hold, before it is too
late."

Jenny sighed, exasperated. "So you must," she said.
"It is to Alyn Hold that I am going to take you."

The squinting eyes got round as the boy's mouth fell
open. "ToЧto Alyn Hold? Really? It's near here?"

"It's the nearest place where we can get your arm seen
to," she said. "Can you ride?"

Had he been dying, she thought, amused, he would

Dragonsbane 9

still have sprung to his feet as he did. "Yes, of course.
IЧdo you know Lord Aversin, then?"

Jenny was silent for a moment. Then, softly, she said,
"Yes. Yes, I know him."

She whistled up the horses, the tall white Moon Horse
and the big liver-bay gelding, whose name, Gareth said,