"Jean Lorrah - Savage Empire 04 - Flight To the Savage Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lorrah Jean)

Concentrating, she told herself the pain was not hers, and forced the sensation to subside as she brought
her heart rate and breathing back to normal.

What happened out there? she asked herself. It's as if the wrong man won!
The roar of the crowd confirmed her thought. They were cheering Metrius, but their praise echoed
Astra's astonishment. A few minds gleefully celebrated victoryтАФbut many people had lost heavily on the
favorite.

Metrius managed to drag himself to his feet, and even those who had bet against him cheered wildly at his
spirit. He limped a few paces, and then was lifted by his fellow gladiators. Their own medic pressed a
clean cloth over his wound, and Astra Read that the worst of the bleeding had stopped. He could have
his triumph before being brought to her for treatment.

Meanwhile, she Read two burly men carrying Clavius' body out of the arena, through the portal known
as Loser's Gate. They would come down the tunnel to the medical station. Astra composed herself, the
image of a competent Reader, ready to perform her last official tasks of the day.

But the stretcher-bearers didn't place the body on the examining table. In fact, they kept right on moving
toward the exit, as though Astra did not exist.

"Stop!" she said sharply, and Read annoyance from both men as they complied.

"Nothin' you can do for this one, Healer," one of them said.

"Nothing except my job," Astra said firmly. "I must officially declare him dead, and you know it."

All day long she had been having trouble with these two menтАФmuttered remarks about her competency
while she worked on the wounded fighters, and looks of contempt when two of the gladiators died of
their wounds. It may be common knowledge that this duty is given as punishment to Readers who
have displeased the Masters of their Academies, she told herself, but I've had enough of this riffraff
treating me like a kickdog.

But she said nothing, for she had been half sick all day from the athletes' pain. The stretcher-bearers
couldn't have missed her paleness, and the sweat that broke out on her face when she forced herself to
Read a man's agony to discover how to treat his wound.

But the very sensitivity which caused her misery at this task let her know no guiltтАФno one could have
saved the two who died, not the most skilled healer at Gaeta.

This dead man did not disturb herтАФhe no longer felt pain. The clean wound to the heart was indeed the
cause of Clavius' death, but that was not what provoked her curiosity. She closed her eyes and
concentrated, focusing her powers for a thorough scan of the dead man's organs.

She didn't find what she expectedтАФa clot or broken vessel in his brainтАФbut rather she discerned a
strange substance in the gladiator's bloodstream. Barely a trace, so little another Reader might have
missed it, but with Astra's sensitivityтАФ

"Vortius, get out of my sight!"

The outburst cut across Astra's wide-open Reading like a thrown knifeтАФbut instead of shielding her