"J. Robert King - Onslaught Cycle 1 - Onslaught" - читать интересную книгу автора (King Robert J)

For Ixidor, pit fighting was about art.
He paused in shuffling the disks and reached out to his partner. His hand settled on her knee and his
eyes on her figure. She was more perfect than any art. Beautiful, brilliant, bold, garbed in white robes and
bedecked in jewels-she was everything he was not. How Ixidor, a gawky artist with jutting jaw and
unkempt hair, could be the companion of this gleaming angel, he would never know. Perhaps she needed
him. After all, a work of art needed an artist.
"The avens aren't ready," Nivea said as if in a trance. Though she grasped his hand, her mind was
faraway, tapping other creatures. "We can't count on them for this fight."
 Ixidor's angular face split in a bemused grin. He fished a disk from among the others. It showed a
contingent of bird-men advancing with pikes foremost. Crumpling the thing, he threw it to the floor of the
prep pen. "Avens've been worthless for a couple of seasons. I'm not going to waste time with them
anymore."
Nivea smiled-not because of his words, but because of another summoning she prepared. "Still, the
Order refugees are raring to go." Nivea herself had once been part of the Northern Order before it was
decimated. "They'll be enough."
Deftly, Ixidor moved the appropriate disks to the top of the stack. He closed his eyes, imagining the
armor he would grant the Order soldiers. Nivea would summon warriors to the pits, and Ixidor would
wrap them in image magic. She commanded reality and he illusion. They had not been beaten yet, and
today would be no exception.
Though her mind still moved among magical mercenaries, Nivea's attention had shifted. "How much
will we make ... if we win?"
"When we win," corrected Ixidor, "we'll make plenty."
"Plenty enough to quit the pits?" Nivea asked. The visionary light had left her eyes, and she fixed
them on Ixidor. "I hate all the killing."
Ixidor flashed her a winning grin. "I know, but we don't kill, my dear. We subdue."
"What if we get killed?"
He kissed the back of her hand. "We can't get killed, not while we're together. Who can stand against
us? None so far."
"So far," echoed Nivea.
"Come on." Ixidor stood and stretched. In one hand he held his paper disks, and in the other he held
the hand of Nivea, lifting her from her seat. He drew her up beside him and wrapped her in his arms.
"Look in my eyes. What do you see?"
Nivea stared. "Confidence. Cockiness. Courage."
"Look closer."
Her gaze grew more intent. "I see myself."
"Yes. As long as you are in my eyes, I am complete. As long as I am in your eyes, you are complete.
How can any of these half-hearts compete with us?"
The worry left her face, and the smile that formed there was radiant. "You always know what to say."
"You mean I'm always right."
She shook her head ruefully. "I mean you almost always know what to say."
Ixidor laughed, and Nivea joined him. This was as much a part of their pre-fight ritual as preparing
their magic. They could not truly fight together until they could laugh together. The sound of it tuned their
souls.
Beyond their laughter came an agonized shriek from the griffon. The crowd roared ecstatically, and
the death bell tolled. The gigantic ape bowed amid a flurry of lost-wager stubs. Pit vermin scuttled out and
dragged away every shred of the bird-lion.
Before the ovation could die down, the gate before Ixidor and Nivea swung open, and the two
emerged onto the pit floor. They lifted their hands together to hail the crowd, and they laughed.
The clamor united Ixidor and Nivea, no longer two entities but one. Some teams were sundered by
that roar-each member fighting as if alone and dying the same. Not these two. Ixidor and Nivea were