"Tanya Huff - Death Rites" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

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DEATH RITES
by Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff lives and writes in rural Ontario with her partner, four cats, and an unintentional chihuahua.
After sixteen fantasies, she wrote her first space opera, Valor's Choice (DAW, April 2000); her sequel to
Summon The Keeper, called The Second Summoning, is a DAW March 2001 release. In her spare time
she gardens and complains about the weather.

AS the sun rose and the Seventh Army rose with it, the assassin's body appeared, lifted up over the top
of the fortress wall by unseen hands.

"Marshal Arnon!"

Holding his kilt, the marshal stepped out of his tent in time to hear the soft melon crack of the assassin's
head hitting stone as the body reached the end of its arc. "Sound carries in these hills," he said
thoughtfully, threading straps through buckles and cinching them tight. Kilt secured, he glanced up first
at the wall and then at the senior of the two soldiers on guard. "Was that what you wanted me to see?"

"Yes, sir."

The marshal nodded and turned on one bare heel back toward the tent. "Tell Commander Zayit I want to
see her immediately. You have my permission to leave your post."

"Sir, if Orban is deadтАж"

Marshal Arnon glanced up from his breakfast. "I think we can safely say that Orban is dead,
Commander."

"Yes, sir. Orban's deathтАФadded to Visolela's and Ganit'sтАФleaves the Seventh Army with only two
assassins. Both are very young and wouldn't stand a chance against Commander JolanтАФex-Commander
Jolan," she corrected hurriedly as the marshal's expression darkened.

"Especially as Jolan has already dealt with Orban, Visolela, and Ganit?"

Commander Zayit winced at the question clearly not intended to be answered. The failure of the three
assassins was, in a sense, the marshal's failure, and he wasn't the sort of man who'd appreciate the
reminder.

They'd effortlessly regained the three villages that had fallen under the ex-commander's control, but First

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and Second Divisions together had not yet been able to come up with a way to pry her out of her hilltop
fortressтАФwhich wasn't surprising since the place had fallen to Imperial expansion originally by betrayal