"Kay, Guy Gavriel - Last Light Of The Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

It was dense and black in the trees. He felt the pine needles
underfoot. Wood smells: moss, pine, scent of a fox. Bern listened;
heard nothing but his own breathing, and the horse's. Gyllir
seemed calm enough. He left him there, turned north again, still in
the woods, towards where he thought the volur's compound was.
He'd seen it a few times, a clearing carved out a little way into the
forest. If someone had magic, Bern thought, they could deal with
wolves. Or even make use of them. It was said that the women
who lived here had tamed some of the beasts, could speak their
language. Bern didn't believe that. He made the hammer sign
again, however, with the thought.

He'd have missed the branching path in the blackness if it hadn't
been for the distant spill of lantern light. It was late for that, the
bottom of a night, but he had no idea what laws or rules women
such as these would observe. Perhaps the seerЧthe
volurЧstayed awake all night, sleeping by day like the owls. The
sense of being in a dream returned. He wasn't going to go back,
and he didn't want to die.

Those two things together could bring you out alone in night
approaching a seer's cabin through black trees. The lightsЧthere
were two of themЧgrew brighter as he came nearer. He could see
the path, and then the clearing, and the structures beyond a fence:
one large cabin, smaller ones flanking it, evergreens in a circle
around, as if held at bay.

An owl cried behind him. A moment later Bern realized that it wasn't
an owl. No going back now, even if his feet would carry him. He'd
been seen, or heard.

The compound gate was closed and locked. He climbed over the
fence. Saw a brewhouse and a locked storeroom with a heavy
door. Walked past them into the glow cast by the lamplight in the
windows of the largest cabin. The other buildings were dark. He
stopped and cleared his throat. It was very quiet.

"Ingavin's peace upon all dwelling here."

He hadn't said a word since rising from his bed. His voice sounded
jarring and abrupt. No response from within, no one to be seen.

"I come without weapons, seeking guidance."

The lanterns flickered as before in the windows on either side of
the cabin door. He saw smoke rising from the chimney. There was
a small garden on the far side of the building, mostly bare this early
in the year, with the snow just gone.

He heard a noise behind him, wheeled.