"Mercedes Lackey - Obsidian 02 - To Light A Candle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

To Light A Candle
By

Mercedes Lackey

Chapter One
In the Forest of Flowers

KELLEN TAVADON COULD never have imagined fighting a battle so one-sided as this, but he no
longer had the energy to spare for despair. Up and around the circumference of the Black Cairn he
went, and as he did, the icy wind slowly increased. It seemed to Kellen as if the source of the wind
was the obelisk itself, as if it blew from someplace not of this world. As if from a great distance, he
could hear inhuman yelping and the sounds of battle. If he looked, he knew he would be able to
watch his friends die.

But he refused to look. He could not afford to be distracted from his battle. It took all his
concentration to keep his footing on the stairs. Kellen's teeth chattered uncontrollably in the cold;
tears that owed nothing to grief streamed from his eyes and froze along his cheeks and lashes. He
gripped Idalia's keystone hard against his stomach and prayed that it would hold together.

If he had been able to think, he would have been certain that his situation could not be any worse,
and then, as a further torment, grit mixed with the frigid wind began to pelt him. Fine sand at first,
that left him blinking and half-blind, but soon good-sized pieces of gravel and small rocks that
hammered his skin and even drew blood. He could taste grit between his teeth, on his tongue, feel
it in his nose, in his lungs, choking him. He pulled his undertunic up over his head. It was hard to
breathe through the heavy quilted leather, but as he heard the wind-driven sand hiss over its
surface, Kellen was glad he'd buried his head in its folds. Better to be half-stifled than blind. Slowly
his tears washed his eyes clean.

Soon it was not just gravel that the wind carried, but rocks the size of a fist. At this rate, he'd be
dodging boulders soon. And one direct hit from anything really large and he'd be dead - and the
fate of Sentarshadeen, and perhaps of all of the Elves, would be sealed.

He needed to protect the keystone as well as his eyes and lungs. Kellen quickly shoved the
keystone up under his shirt, and turned toward the wall so it was protected by his body as well.
The keystone was as icy against his skin as it had once been warm against his hands. He turned
his face against the wall, and crept even more slowly, up the stairs. The sand made them slippery,
and he knew Something was hoping he'd fall and break the fragile keystone.

At least the howling of the wind and the booming of the rocks against the stone shut out all sound
of the battle below. If it was still going on. If all his friends weren't dead already.

I won't look back, Kellen promised himself. Whatever happens, I won't look back.

It was so unfair for the enemy he faced to be throwing rocks at him! Unfair - no, it wasn't so much
that it was unfair. It was humiliating. The Enemy wasn't even going to bother wasting its Demon
warriors on stopping him; he wasn't an Elven Knight, after all. He wasn't any sort of a real threat.
He meant so little to the Enemy that the Enemy thought it was enough to batter him with a few
rocks, certain that he was so cowardly, so worthless, that he would turn tail and run.