"Barb & J. C. Hendee - Noble Dead 03 - Sister of the Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hendee JC & Barb)

She clutched the table for balance as he bent her backward. His thumb levered her chin sideways to
face his companions as he studied her profile. Even with her head tilted, she kept her gaze upon her
assailant.

Candlelight partially exposed his face inside the hood. Nearly colorless crystalline eyes stared back at
her, and his features were paler than those of her own fair-skinned people. A long aquiline nose ran
down to a thin-lipped mouth. He wore steel vambraces on both forearms, and beneath his cloak was a
crestless, burgundy tabard over a shirt of mail. She fumbled for better support on the table, and the base
of her palm scraped something sharp.

"This is the one?" he asked, but his question was not to her.

The one who called him Father took a step into the hut, allowing the third figure to drift toward her.

His long, hooded robe swirled like black oil as he glided across the cottage floor. Firelight made faint
markings and strange symbols shimmer in and out of sight upon its folds. Where his face should have
been was a mask of aged leather that ended above a bony jaw supporting a withered mouth. The woman
saw no eye slits in his mask. He reached toward her, as if he "saw" her, but his gaunt fingers stopped shy
of her cheek as she struggled to pull away.

"Get out of my home!" she shouted. No one gave her notice.

"Yes..., " the masked one whispered with a voice like windblown sand. "The one shown to me. The one
sent into my dreams by our patron. "
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The father glanced back to his son.

"You should be pleased, " he remarked. "She'll make you an attractive bride. "

The woman's eyes widened. She wouldn't be the first or the last to suffer the whims of a vassal lord
assigned to a fief, but nobles did not take village women as wives.

"Bride?" said the son. "I doubt, Father, that your lackey"тАФand the masked one hissed over his
shoulderтАФ "would bother with the customs attached to such a title. Take her and let us leave. The
sooner done, the better. "

The masked one's fingers inched forward, and she felt her captor's grip tighten to pull her up. At the
touch of fingertips on her cheek, her hand closed about the knife on the table.

The robed one recoiled to the room's far wall before she even moved. She twisted forward, thrusting
low and upward. The knife blade slipped into the side slit of her captor's mail shirt and buried in his
abdomen.

His grip clenched harder about her throat. No one in the cottage moved.