"Robin Hobb - Assassin 1 - Assassin' s Apprentice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

My tongue was dry in my mouth and Nosy cowered at my feet. "But I don't
know," I protested. "How can I know what I'll do, until I've done it? How can I
say?"
"Well, if you can't say, I can!" he roared, and I sensed then in full how he
had banked the fires of his temper, and also how much he'd drunk that night.
"The pup goes and you stay. You stay here, in my care, where I can keep an eye
on you. If Chivalry will not have me with him, it's the least I can do for him.
I'll see that his son grows up a man, and not a wolf. I'll do it if it kills the
both of us!"
He lurched from the bench, to seize Nosy by the scruff of the neck. At least,
such was his intention. But the pup and I sprang clear of him. Together we
rushed for the door, but the latch was fastened, and before I could work it,
Burrich was upon us. Nosy he shoved aside with his boot; me he seized by a
shoulder and propelled me away from the door. "Come here, pup," he commanded,
but Nosy fled to my side. Burrich stood panting and glaring by the door, and I
caught the growling undercurrent of his thoughts, the fury that taunted him to
smash us both and be done with it. Control overlaid it, but that brief glimpse
was enough to terrify me. And when he suddenly sprang at us, I repelled at him
with all the force of my fear.
He dropped as suddenly as a bird stoned in flight and sat for a moment on the
floor. I stooped and clutched Nosy to me. Burrich slowly shook his head as if
shaking raindrops from his hair. He stood, towering over us. "It's in his
blood," I heard him mutter to himself. "From his damned mother's blood, and I
shouldn't be surprised. But the boy has to be taught." And then, as he looked me
full in the eye, he warned me, "Fitz. Never do that to me again. Never. Now give
me that pup."
He advanced on us again, and as I felt the lap of his hidden wrath, I could
not contain myself. I repelled at him again. But this time my defense was met by
a wall that hurled it back at me, so that I stumbled and sank down, almost
fainting, my mind pressed down by blackness. Burrich stooped over me. "I warned
you," he said softly, and his voice was like the growling of a wolf. Then, for
the last time, I felt his fingers grip Nosy's scruff. He lifted the pup bodily
and carried him, not roughly, to the door. The latch that had eluded me he
worked swiftly, and in moments I heard the heavy tromp of his boots down the
stair.
In a moment I had recovered and was up, flinging myself against the door. But
Burrich had locked it somehow, for I scrabbled vainly at the catch. My sense of
Nosy receded as he was carried farther and farther from me, leaving in its place
a desperate loneliness. I whimpered, then howled, clawing at the door and
seeking after my contact with him. There was a sudden flash of red pain, and
Nosy was gone. As his canine senses deserted me completely I screamed and cried
as any six-year-old might, and hammered vainly at the thick wood planks.
It seemed hours before Burrich returned. I heard his step and lifted my head
from where I lay panting and exhausted on the doorstep. He opened the door and
then caught me deftly by the back of my shirt as I tried to dart past him. He
jerked me back into the room and then slammed the door and fastened it again. I
flung myself wordlessly against it, and a whimpering rose in my throat. Burrich
sat down wearily.
"Don't even think it, boy," he cautioned me, as if he could hear my wild
plans for the next time he let me out.