"Tara K. Harper - Wolfwalker 1 - Wolfwalker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harper Tara K)

light behind her, and the snap of human bones was the death drum in her earsтАФshe did not have to look
back to see the hairy forearms that dragged to their knees when they stood and the other, spindly middle
arms that tore at the riding beasts like the cutters on a farmer's plow. Their beetle jaws dripped blood and
tendons as they fought over a body. Ember Dione whimpered and dragged on. It was dark.

Night voices flickered in and out of her ears. But the gray shadow led her on when she cried out, and the
rough tongue licked at the pain till she fell into the dark fire of her pulse, where the black heat blinded
her. Blood, thin and warm, dribbled down her face and slid into her ear, and as the noise drowned, the
dark again became complete.

It was dawn when she woke, her head throbbing dully, the air green with morning dusk. Her slender
body was curled in (he growth of a deadfall, her gashed leg stretched stiffly out to one side and her black
hair tangled in the twigs. A sharp branch stuck into her cheek. Against her back, the gray wolf was
warm, proof of the early chill that was seeping through the moss and the calm that greeted her wakening.
No burned-out wagons met

WOLFWALKER 3

her eyes; no smoldering fires caught at her ears. Just the blood that stiffly soaked her clothes and the
pain that killed her thoughts.

And she remembered . . . Her brother, Rhom, torn apart like abird under the worlag's raging jaws. The
slim woman bit back the sob, clenching her fists and closing her eyes. Oh, Rhom . . .

She forced her eyes to see again, forced her mind to admit she had seen him die. The worlags . . . She
had seen him fall, slashing and cutting with his sword under the force of the beasts that tore him apart
while Gray Hishn ripped at a monster's black carapace. And then the worlags closed in and the wolf
jumped clear and her twinтАФhe was gone. Just like that. Dead. Rhom, the merchant, the guardsтАФ
everyone, she told herself harshly, everyone dead but her.

Her throat grew tight against the agony that racked her like a rising storm shaking a fragile house, and
she pushed the thoughts away, curling closer into the wolf's thick fur. Was this the grief of death? she
asked herself- The blinding ache? The Gray One's fur lay gritty against her tears, and she wondered if
she was crying for the mangled bodies of those she once knew or the empty disbelief that her twin was
dead. "Survive first," she whispered, gripping Gray Hishn's coat in her white-knuckled fist. "Then deal
with the dead."

When she woke again, her mouth was parched into wrinkles and her tongue felt dried, stuck to the roof
of her mouth. She pushed herself up on her side and rolled over, clenching her teeth against the jagged
blast of pain that greeted her. Her leg felt crushed, and her head felt split. But it was the cluster of bisects
feeding off the filthy scabs that turned her stomach. Hurriedly she fought down the flash of nausea and
scraped them off, brushing her hands on her pants while they skittered angrily back into the shelter of
the moss.

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