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

execute the manтАЩs thoughts more than his orders. Those people were the
lethal heart of the group. Now they rode for Talon.
тАЬAnything?тАЭ Sojourn asked in a low voice.
Talon let himself open to the echo of gray. Long ago, that faint sense of
wolves in his skull had been a thicker fog. Now there was too much blood
on his hands. The pack could take no comfort in the killer he had become:
Lone wolf. Lobo. Worlag wolf. Still, three, four months ago something had
changed in themтАФor in him, perhaps as a result of his wounds. He was
susceptible now, weakened and open to the gray. They gnawed at the edge
of his thoughts even in the daytime, worrying him like a marrowed bone,
urging him north to the cold. They were too much like him, trapped by the
will of another, and they snapped at his thoughts as they fought to find their
release from men. He would have freed them if he could, but it was not he
who had trapped their minds in his skull.
He stared into the dull darkness as if he could see their yellow-black eyes.
They had to suspect what he would do that day, and with their engineered
abilities, had to know that it was wrong, but they sent nothing to him but
their own urgency, a growing need, and the blind frustration that
accompanied both. тАЬNot yet,тАЭ he finally answered.
In the dark, the slender manтАЩs murmur was dry. тАЬWe trust your eyes, son of
Drovic.тАЭ
Talon kept his expression calm. Some time ago, a swath of beetles had
passed through the woods and left the shredded bark clinging to the trunks
like shrouds. With the wolves heightening his senses, he could smell the
torn bark better than Sojourn, but it had been they, not he, who had found
the hill in the dark. With his fatherтАЩs hatred of wolves and wolfwalkers,
TalonтАЩs use of the Gray Ones was not a wise confession.
He tuned out the slight sighing sound of the trees and listened instead to the
dark. Beetles, birdbeasts, gelbugs, wormsтАФin swarm years like this one, the
world itself seemed to gather and strike at humankind. Raiders such as
Drovic swarmed with it. They gathered in the shadows like worlags and

file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Tara%20K.%20Harper%20-%2...ker%205%20-%20Silver%20Moons,%20Black%20Steel.html (26 of 439)22-12-2006 2:33:23
Silver Moons, Black SteelтАФHarper, Tara K - Wolf 05


struck out with anger and vengeance. That same urgency for blood filled
Talon. He had once clenched at dreams; now he struck out almost blindly at
others. Rage, entrapment, frustration, rageтАФnot even the dark could
obscure that circle. He felt his jaw tighten as he watched the road below.
That valley road was a snake of gray-white legend made by the Ancients.
The colonists had sworn to return to the sky and had died instead of the
plague they brought down on themselves. Like the tension that coiled
TalonтАЩs hands, the stone-road snake that was their legacy tried to writhe up
as he did, from the dirt toward the taunting stars.
Beside him, Sojourn glanced at the sky, then murmured softly, тАЬSoon.тАЭ
Talon fought the urge to turn on the other man, and he ripped his sword hilt
with long, lean fingers that wanted to clench and draw and strike. Worlag
piss, but of course it was soon. It was nearly dawn. Did the man think his
weakness made him blind as a summer stokal?