"Mercedes Lackey - Dragon Jousters 3 - Sanctuary" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Kiron preferred to greet Avatre with a clear head and unclouded eyes, this
morning especially, because it was all the more needful on this day that each
dragon of the wing fly to the hunt and return with prey before the sun reached its
zenith. Because today, they had another reason besides the sun's implacable
hammer to be well in shelter. There would be a great sandstorm today, so said
Kaleth, and Kiron saw no reason to disbelieve him.

And when Kaleth meant a "great" sandstorm, he was not speaking of a quarter
day of wind and blowing sand. Kiron and the others had not yet weathered a
"great" sandstorm, but the Veiled Ones had, and so had Kaleth; the Midnight
kamiseen, the storm without rain that brought the darkness of night at midday.
The Bedu spoke feelingly of a sky black at midday, of wind too strong to stand
against, of air so thick with dust and grit you could not breatheтАФ



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тАФof a storm full of sand like millions of miniscule knives that flayed clothing
from the body, and flesh from bone, and packed every open orifice with wind-
driven dirt. Get in the shelter of a rock or a dune, and you might survive, if you
could get a clear space for your face, breathe through cloth, and manage to keep
from being buried alive.

There was no sign of such a storm. The thin, clear light and the cloudless sky
held nothing but peace.

Kiron did not trust the promise of such "peace." He trusted Kaleth.

Kaleth was, without a doubt, god-touched. Had he not led them all here, to the
once-buried city of legend they now called Sanctuary? If he said such a storm
would blow up, Kiron would believe him. Certainly the Veiled Ones did. Those
within the area of the storm had either taken themselves out of its path, or moved
into the city, little though they liked living within walls even for a single day.

Kiron nodded to himself, as he looked out over a city that seemed very strange to
the eyes of one accustomed to the straight, clean lines of the buildings of Alta
and Tia. Once, Kaleth (then Prince Kaleth) had been nothing more than the
quiet, studious twin brother of the more charismatic Prince Toreth. True, he,
with Toreth, was one of the four designated heirs to the Thrones of Alta, but
until Toreth had been murdered, he had been something of a cipher to most.

Well, he certainly wasn't a cipher now. A Winged One of Alta, in truth, and a
Priest of Haras of Tia, he spoke for the gods of both peoples.

Gods, which were, Kiron was coming to understand, one and the same. Or at
least, there was so little difference it mattered not at all.