"Lackey, Mercedes - Alta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

She hit.
There was no shock, as there was when she hit and bound. Instead, she slowed for just a moment, as a bellow of rage erupted just below her feet, then she surged upward with a great beat of her wings.
It sounded like thunder in his ears, each wingbeat pounding the air, and the bellowing of the river horse still ringing below them. But Avatre knew she was not done, not yet. Her blood was up now, and the prey was audibly still alive. She got just enough height to stoop again, and did a wingover that left Kiron's stomach still hanging in the air behind them, as she dove for another raking maneuver.
The girl was still in the water, fighting her way through the reeds. The river horse was only wounded; it had shook what was left of the rower out of its jaws, and was peering around with its little piggy eyes to see what had hurt it so. But before it could catch sight of the girl's thrashing arms, Avatre struck again.
More bellows; again that surge of wings. As they climbed, Kiron looked down again.
No good. The other rower was getting away from the area as fast as his arms could take him, despite the curses of the spearman, who had somehow lost his spear. The river horse was still between them and the girl. The girl's arms weren't moving as fast; she was tiring. And there was blood in the water, plenty of it. It would not be long before there were crocodiles, or worse, more river horses.
They couldn't keep raking the beast; at any moment, it would understand that attack was coming from above and dive, and then it might find and seize the girl. Time for another trick.
Except that the girl didn't know it. So he would have to get into the water.
He signaled Avatre with hands and legs not to make a third attack, and turned her toward where the girl was. If he could just reach that coil of rope behind him--
His hand found it; he pulled it off the pack, and looped it around himself just under his armpits, and tied it in place. The other end was still fastened to the packs. He hoped he had fastened it securely. This would be a bad time to discover that he had not.
As Avatre swooped low over the girl, who ducked instinctively, then came up in a hover, he threw himself out of the saddle, tucking himself into a ball to protect his head and stomach.
He hit the water with a splash that stung his arms and legs and drove him under for a moment. He unfolded his limbs and forced himself upward, tossing his head and gasping as he broke the surface of the water and looked around for the girl.
Unbelievably, she was no more than an arm's-length away, and before the rope could tighten around him, he had her, wrapping both his arms around her just under her arms, and clasping his hands on his own wrists.
"Pull!" he screamed at the dragon above him, and obediently, Avatre surged upward.
The rope around his chest cut into him as the dragon turned her hover into flight; the dead weight of the girl threatened to pull his arms out of their sockets, and reeds lashed his back and head as Avatre pulled them both through the swamp backward. It felt as if Khefti-the-Fat was giving him the worst lashing of his life, while trying to squeeze him in half, and tear him limb from limb, all at the same time. And meanwhile, the weight of the girl threatened to drag him underwater. It was a total, painful assault on all his senses. He couldn't think. He couldn't even see, not really. All he could do was to hold on, grim as a hungry ghost, hold on, and hope that Avatre would find somewhere solid to land.
Soon.
Please. Oh, gods. Soon.
He couldn't see; he could only feel. Couldn't let go. Wouldn't let go. Pain turned his arms and back into hot agony, his lungs burned with the water he'd inhaled--
Don't let go--
Hard to breathe--the rope tightening over his chest--
Don't let go!
The world grew darker--redder--darker--as he sobbed to get a breath, just one, just another, then--
Then it stopped. The motion, anyway, if not the pain.
He gasped for a breath that didn't have water in it; agony burned across his chest. Thought he heard something like a curse.
The wire of pain around his chest snapped, and he could breathe again, and he gasped in one huge, blessed breath of air.
Felt someone tugging at his arms, his poor, wrenched arms. "Get up!" said the high voice urgently in his ear. "Please, get up!"
"Can't," he said thickly and tried to shake the water, hair, and mud out of his face. He opened his eyes; everything seemed blurred.
"Orest!" the high voice called. "He can't get up! You have to help me!"
He tried to move his leaden legs then; found that they would work, a little, so that when a second person came splashing through the shallows, he was able to at least get his own feet under him. With one person on each side, they got him to the side of a boat, and he half-fell and was half-pushed, into it. Wind buffeted them all. Somehow he rolled over and saw a blur of scarlet above as the other two clambered in beside him.
"Avatre!" he called, and coughed. It hurt to call--hurt to breathe again, but he didn't want her attacking--"Avatre! Follow!" he managed. "Follow!"
He fell into a fit of coughing again, and his vision grayed for a moment. Small hands pounded his back, until he coughed up some muddy water, which seemed to help a little, and the high voice said, "It's all right. She's following us."
"And hanged if I know how he's making her do that," said a new voice, admiringly. "I've never seen any Jouster who could make his dragon do anything like he did. Who are you?"
"Kiron," he managed, around pain-filled gasps. "Son of Kiron--"
"Never mind that. Never mind any of that," the young girl's voice said firmly. "You just rest. We'll get you back, you and your dragon. Just rest. We'll get you help and take you to where you belong."
Where I belong! he thought wonderingly, around the pain. Where I belong--
And he closed his eyes, lying curled in the bottom of the boat, and let them take him wherever they were going to. Because wherever it was--it was going to be home, where he belonged, at long last.




THREE


HE MUST have hurt himself more than he'd thought--he'd thought his life had hardened him against any and all punishments, but apparently being dragged backward through a swamp, over submerged logs and sharp sedges and who knew what all else, was a little more than even he could handle. Something happened to him after he was hauled into that little boat, because he lost a significant slice of time. One moment, he was curled with his cheek against the reed bundles of the bottom of that boat, and the next--he wasn't.
Probably he blacked out for a while; at least, that was the only conclusion his pain-fogged mind could come up with, because the next thing he knew, he was being picked up with surprising care by two enormous men, one at his head and the other at his knees, while the girl babbled and fussed at them. And all he could think was that Avatre would surely think he was being attacked.
"Wait!" he gasped, "My dragon will--"
"Here's the Healer!" interrupted the boy's voice, just as the two men set Kiron down carefully on a warm, rough surface that felt like stone. And it hurt anyway. His back screamed at him, until he rolled over on his side to get what was obviously lacerated skin off that rough stone.
Kiron blinked his eyes hard to clear them from the tears of pain; as he got them to focus, he saw he was lying on stone, on a little pier, in fact, and the mud-spattered girl and boy had been joined by two enormous men in plain rough-spun tunics, probably the ones who had gotten him out of the boat. Bending over him was a woman with her hair hanging loose; she was dressed in a flowing white linen gown with no jewels at all, and only a soft white belt at the waist. Avatre had already landed at the very end of the stone pier, and was eyeing the proceedings with anxiety. He tried to say something--to warn them that Avatre could be dangerous in this situation--
But then, to his astonishment, the girl walked fearlessly up to the dragon and stretched out her hand.
Avatre started back, eyes wide--then, cautiously, eased her head forward, sniffing suspiciously at the outstretched palm.