"Jane Lindskold - Firekeeper Saga 4 - Wolf Captured" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindskold Jane)

meant was that his blood flowing had confirmed he was alive. Dead things don't bleed, but certainly she
could not have been happy to find him alive in such a circumstance.

Firekeeper went on, "Then the man with me say, 'You come and the wolf, too, or we'll let out all of
Derian Carter's blood, and we'll do it slowly and make sure he's awake to feel it.'"

Derian rubbed his face with his hands again, trying to waken a memory of any of this, but there was none.
He must have been well and truly drunkтАФor drugged.

"And you came?" he said, hearing the disbelief in his own voice. "You came?"

"We come," the husky voice replied. "They would do what they say, and though after we kill them all
there would be no saving you. And I remember what you tell me when first I come from my packтАФhow
Earl Kestrel use Blind Seer to make me do as he wishтАФand I think these men know that trick, too, and
if not you, then maybe Elise or Doc or some other. I would not buy my running free for your blood."

"HorseтАж " Derian swore softly. He understood Firekeeper's reasoning, but it angered him to have been
the hostage used to force her actions. She had come to him without any ties, unable to understand the
concept of hostages until he had explained it. Now she was bound, and he hated being one of the ropes
that bound her.

Firekeeper seemed to sense his anger, but misunderstood it. Her rough voice was almost tender when
she next spoke.

"I think they want you for you," she said, "not just to use me. I hear them call you my keeper, and I think
it good if they think this."

Derian nodded.

"Firekeeper," he said softly. "Do you think we can get away?"

"I not know," came the frank reply. "But I know no one of mine will look for us."

Derian's memory was returning now with such dismaying clarity that he almost wished for the headache
to dominate again.

"No," he said, forcing the words. "We were leaving tomorrow morning, first west, then on a buying trip.
No one will miss me for a moonspan or more, and even then they'll just think I was delayed."

He cursed the ill luck that made this possible. How many other people could travel through isolated areas
so completely alone? He might be the only man in Hawk Haven who couldтАФand that was because
Firekeeper would be with him.

King Tedric had wanted them to take a look at the new fortifications going up in the gap in the Iron
MountainsтАФto make the kind of report only they could manage, for Firekeeper could ask her people if
the measures were acceptable, while Derian could explain more clearly than anyone else just what was
going on.

Most expeditions of this sort would involve pack trains and armed guards. The one Earl Kestrel had led
two years before had done so. However, horses and mules were less than relaxed around Firekeeper