"Mercedes Lackey - Dragon Jousters 2 - Alta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

fighting, or Tian Jousters. It was time for him to leave the desert and his guide.



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Avatre drifted down to the waiting Bedu, and backwinged to a graceful landingтАФshe'd gotten a great
deal better at them than she used to be! And the Mouth nodded toward the horizon as soon as she had
folded her wings.

"Half a day, and you will be where you wished to beтАФacross the border, in Alta. I hope that this proves
to be truly what you desired," the Mouth said.

Half a dayтАФThat seemed about right. In the clear air of the desert, things were a lot farther away than
they seemed to be to one who had been born in the land reclaimed from the swamp. He shaded his eyes
with one hand and peered out into the western distance, the faint haze that marked the beginning of land
where things could grow. He licked dry lips. "It has to be what I truly desire, doesn't it?" he replied, as
straightforward as the Bedu had been. "There's no place else for me to go."

"You undertake a different sort of trial, when you cross that border, young Kiron," the Mouth persisted.
"And perhaps things will not always be to your liking. We of the desert know little of the dwellers in the
marshy delta of the Great Mother River, for they have little to do with us, and we have nothing at all to
do with those of the Seven-Ringed City itself. I cannot tell you what to expect other than the advice I
have already given you. It may be that you go only from one hazard to another."

"But I will be free," he said softly, with one hand on Avatre's neck. "And so will she. Perhaps we need
remain only long enough for her to grow to her full strength and size, and if things are not as I had hoped
тАФwell, it will be easier for us to escape again, should it come to that."

The Mouth's head bowed slightly. "This is so." The other stared with Vetch to that distant haze of green.
"Then, I can only say, your gods go with you."

Kiron touched his brow, his lips, and his heart in thanks and farewell. He gave Avatre the signal and,
with a tremendous shove of her legs, she launched for the sky.

When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw that the Mouth had already turned the camel and was
heading back in the direction of the clan's encampment. Which was just as well, since he had no
intention of following the advice about not hunting to the letter. While he and Avatre were still in the
desert, they still had hunting-rights, and he was not going to assume that once they crossed into that belt
of green, they would immediately find a place where he could obtain the tremendous amount of meat
that she needed to sustain her.

So long as he kept that green in sight, they had a goal. They had already come so far north before turning
back toward Altan lands that any interception by Tian Jousters on patrol was next to impossible. So
while they would probably camp tonight inside that belt of green, before they reached it, he would be
certain that Avatre had eaten her fill.

When they found an exceptionally strong thermal, he sent her up as high as she could go, remembering