"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Judeth had listened to the conversation with a wry half-smile, and now put her own opinion. "So,
now the next generation goes off hunting adventures," she said, combing her fingers through her hair,
"while we stay home and see to it that when they come back, they won't find anything much changed.
Personally, I don't envy them in the least."
"Nor I," Skan said firmly. "Adventures always seemed to involve impact with the ground at a high
rate of speed, and ended in a lot of pain. Maybe my memory is faulty sometimes, but I haven't forgotten
that part."
Amberdrake finally came out of his own reverie and sighed. "Your memory isn't faulty, old bird. I
remember picking quite a few pieces of broken foliage and not a few rocks out of your hide, and more
than once." He patted Skan's shoulder. "I don't know why you couldn't have picked a gentler way of
collecting souvenirs."
Skan winced, and Aubri grinned at his discomfiture. From the look in his eyes, Aubri was about to
make another stab at puncturing Skan's pride.
But Aubri had reckoned without Winterhart, who had been listening just as intently to the
conversation as Judeth had.
"And I recall that rather than collecting souvenirs of enemy territory, Aubri specialized in attracting
enemy fire," she said, with a little smirk and a wink at Judeth that was so fast Aubri didn't catch it. "In
fact, he did it so often that his wing used to refer to getting hit by flamestrike as 'being Aubri'ed.' As in,
'Well, I've been Aubri'ed out until my primaries grow back.' Or, 'Well, you certainly got Aubri'ed back
there!'"
 Aubri met this piece of intelligence with his beak open in a gape. "They did not!" he gasped
indignantly.
Of course they didn't. Skan, who had known every piece of gossip there was to know back then,
would have heard of this long before Winterhart ever had. In fact, Winterhart would probably not have
heard any such thing, since before she was Amberdrake's lover, she had tended to treat the gryphons of
her wing as little more than intelligent animals. Such an attitude was not likely to make anyone tell her
anything.
But Aubri's reaction was so delightful that everyone fell in with the joke. For once, someone besides
Skan was going to come in for a share of abuse.
Is it my birthday? Or has the Kaled'a'in Lady decided to bless me, however momentarily?
Judeth rubbed the side of her nose with her finger. "I'm afraid they did," she confirmed impishly, and
then elaborated on it. "When I deployed your wing, they always liked to fly formation with you on the
end since it just about guaranteed that no one else would get hit with lightning or mage-fire. Once or
twice I heard them talking about 'Old Charcoal,' and I think they meant you."
Aubri's beak worked, but nothing came out; the muscles of his throat were moving, too, but he
didn't even utter as much as a squeak.
"It could have been worse," Winterhart continued, delivering the final blow. "I did succeed in
discouraging the nickname of 'Fried Chicken.'"
Aubri's eyes widened; his head came up and his beak continued to move, but all he could manage to
say was, "Well!" over and over. Since he sounded exactly like a highly-offended old matron, he only
managed to cause the entire gathering to break up into laughter. And if the laughter was somewhat
nervous, well, there were four nervous parents there who drastically needed the release of laughter.
They laughed long enough to bring tears to the eyes of the humans and make Aubri's nares flush
bright red. Before Aubri managed to have an apoplectic fit, though, Winterhart confessed that she had
made it all up. "Not that you didn't deserve the nickname, after all the times you came back singed," she
added. "But no one ever suggested pinning it on you."
Aubri growled, his hackles still up. "They wouldn't have dared," was all he said, and Judeth led him
off to ease his ruffled feelings and ruffled feathers.
"I don't think he liked being on the receiving end of the teasing," Amberdrake remarked mildly.
"Then perhaps he will stop treating Skandranon to so much of it after this," Zhaneel responded, her