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

journey Dion did not want. She carried her reminders with her. Her sword
was rough where steel had chipped steel. The edge on her long knife was
thin from years of sharpening, and the handles on her weapons were black
and shiny with use. She no longer felt comfortable without them, no longer
slept deeply when she lay down. The wolves offered the past as if it were
yesterday, as if those ghosts would assuage her overwariness, her sense of
loss, and although she desperately wanted to reach for those lost images,
she closed herself to that curse. If she ever hoped to release the dead, she
must turn away from the ghosts. She would give her child to the future, not
the past with its grief and graves.
Another wolf lifted his head as they waited for her answer. Do you run with
us? There was eagerness, but also a hint of impatience in the words. DionтАЩs

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Tara%20K.%20Harper%20-%2...ker%205%20-%20Silver%20Moons,%20Black%20Steel.html (19 of 439)22-12-2006 2:33:23
Silver Moons, Black SteelтАФHarper, Tara K - Wolf 05


expression softened. The wild wolves seemed brutally simple. Without the
intimacy of a true bond, the impressions she received were crude and rough,
lacking the smooth, complex weavings she had with her own partner wolf.
Three of the wild ones stared at her. Wolfwalker, they howled. Do you run?
The rest of the pack poised at the white-fringed forest as they waited for her
answer.
They were restless. She grinned suddenly: So was she. The urge to cut her
cloak free and sprint through the trees was in her blood, not just in theirs.
There was a call to baptise her unborn child with the wolves, to set in that
fetal blood the need for wilderness. She had lost much in the past few years.
Now she held tightтАФtoo tightly perhapsтАФto the child that grew in her
womb. She could simply stop, she realized, and let the hunters catch up, for
winter would come early to this town, earlier than in Randonnen. It would
trap her in the peaks for the Ariyens to retrieve at their leisure. Or she could
run with the wolves and let the hunters live as she did, with frigid mornings
and sweating trails, blistered heels and aches. She smiled grimly to herself.
She made the decision even as she thought the choice. She saw no reason to
make it easy for the Ariyens to take her back. Besides, they were not the
only ones to whom she owed a duty.
One of the Gray Ones raised his head and howled into the wind. Back near
the corral, a boy and three men climbed up on the fence to watch. A shiver
of unease crept into the pack as they became aware of the villagers. The
baying rose and fell, fell, and others began to howl with him. It was the
pack call, the call to gather and reaffirm each oneтАЩs place in the group.
From the field, the five wolves loped away through the twisted hedge and
joined the rest of the pack. They howled again, reminding her of her
promise to them. Her throat tightened as she fought the urge to answer.
To whom do you bind your life-debt? It was not a question from the
wolves. It was a layered voice, an icy inhuman voice that spoke deep in her
mind. The wind bit tauntingly at her cheeks, whipping the forest birds up
and over the trees. There was nothing menacing in the flight, but Dion was
suddenly afraid. She was too far north, too close to the alien breeding
grounds. If humans had originally thought to share the planet with the