"Tara K. Harper - Wolfwalker 5 - Silver Moons, Black Steel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harper Tara K)

left, it was as if the studio exhaled power, leaving the merely human behind.
Dion didnтАЩt look back. She made her way along the stone walk toward the
boardinghouse as her workout-warmed body chilled hard. Overhead, two of
the nine moons seemed spitted on the jagged, snow-draped mountains that
made up the horizon, while three more crossed the cold sky. She pulled her
cloak more tightly to her. To the west, a wolf howled thinly at the moons. It
was a sharp call, even at that distance, and DionтАЩs head whipped around at
the sound. The wolf howled again, and she changed direction without
thinking.
Moving quickly, she wove between broad alleys and homes toward the
western fields. She returned a womanтАЩs nod absently, the greeting of a few
men with irritation as if their words were somehow in her way. Two wolves
howled now, and her feet quickened on the cold stone. Her nostrils flared as
if she could smell the musk in her own nostrils, not theirs.
She passed the outer ring of homes and common corrals where the six-
legged dnu grazed the last enclosed pasture. With their engineered, slightly
segmented bellies, the dnu looked like double bubbles perched on spindly
legs with comically overlarge feet. They were a distortion of aesthetics that
had never been meant as riding beasts, but as beasts of burden and breeders
for the original colonistsтАЩ livestock. If the Ariyens had their way, the dnu
would also carry soldiers and swords, not just elders and farmers and
scouts. Her lips thinned at the thought. There were already enough graves
on this world; they had no need of more. She had fled her own ghosts and
graves to Randonnen, then to Kiren and Kiaskari, riding north until she was
stopped at the base of the impassable alien mountains. And yet she had not
run far enough. It had served no purpose to curse the Ariyen elders. In the
end, it hadnтАЩt been they, but her own sense of duty that was bringing her
back to the counties.
Oaths, the gray whispered.

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Tara%20K.%20Harper%20-%2...ker%205%20-%20Silver%20Moons,%20Black%20Steel.html (17 of 439)22-12-2006 2:33:23
Silver Moons, Black SteelтАФHarper, Tara K - Wolf 05


She stared at the rounded fields of untrampled snow that surrounded the
alpine village. While Ariye had used her, the wolves had waited patiently
for her to fulfill a promise sheтАЩd made to them long ago. They too had tried
to save her, filling her mind with ghosts as if those lost voices would make
her whole. Now they pushed her back toward Ariye, toward the single wolf
she had left behind. She smiled grimly. The Gray Ones or the AriyensтАж If,
or rather when, the Ariyens caught up with her, they might be surprised at
the choice that she would make.
A snarling deep in her skull answered the unspoken thought, and her smile
widened to a feral grin. They unnerved her, these wild ones, but they were
strong as a band of worlags. They made her growl at humans who drew too
close, made her howl at night with the pack. It had been useful, she
admitted. No one pushed questions on a wolfwalker who bared her teeth too
often. Too close to the wolves, he had saidтАж
She ducked quickly through the split rail fence into the near field. No one
was working the sweetrye. The fields had been cut to red stubble and were