"Tara K. Harper - Wolfwalker 2 - Shadow Leader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harper Tara K)

of things that moved too dangerously close. The thickets of
silverheart trees that leaned against the game trail were guards
who slept so that the poison masa might pass. Dion could not
suppress the chill that crawled slowly down her spine, and her
hand tightened on her sword. Under the crowded canopy,
where the sun was rebuffed by the dark green of the trees, the
trail crept away from them in both directions, hemmed in by
the shrubs and branches of black willow and blowweed. But
the blowweed twigs looked more like vines now, and the open
space of the path was suddenly small and claustrophobic. She
dropped her hand to the gray wolf's scruff, alternately scratch-
ing and gripping the thick fur. The massive creature echoed her
apprehension, and Aranur could almost hear them talk, the
gray tones faint in his mind like a dream he could not quite
remember.
Can you smell it, Hishn? Dion's gaze sharpened as a bird
flew suddenly up from a tree.
 The wolf growled low in her throat. Thick in my nose like an
onion, she sent back, snorting softly to clear the cloying odor
from her muzzle.
Something rustled to the side, and Dion tensed, but it was
another eelbird darting across the path, its beak full of the sour
berries that the jackbush carried in a dry season. She glanced
at Aranur, then back at the forest. Where is the masa now?
Another animal moved in the brush behind them, and the
wolf's lips snarled suddenly back from gleaming teeth. Go. Go
on the trail now and do not wait.
Aranur was regarding them with a strange expression. "I
heard," he said quietly. He cleared his sword one more time of
the sap that clung to the blade, but left the weapon bare and
ready. "Stay close," he ordered.
Dion hid a wry smile. She was not going to be farther away
than his heels. Not if masa walked. She drew her own sword,
making sure her long knife was loose in its sheath, as well.
Almost touching, the two fighters worked their way down
the path, the Gray One slinking first in front of them, then
behind, but never more than a step away from the woman who
followed Aranur like a shadow. And Aranur, with the grace of
a dangerous cat, moved always so that his sword arm was free.
There were few men who could match him in the woods, Dion
realized. Few, too, who had as much skill in weapons as he.
And although her brother, Rhom, would not yet admit it, she
suspected that Aranur could best Rhom quickly in both hand-
to-hand fighting and weapons. She shifted to the side to keep
her sword arm clear of Aranur's cutting path. As the tall, lean
man moved silently across a tiny clearing, the sun flashed
briefly on the mesh of his warcap, men hid again, as if ashamed
to be caught peeking through the trees. The shadows on Ara-
nur's face grew dark under the trees. His bones were too an-
gular for him to be handsome, Dion thought, but there was a