"Jean Lorrah - Savage Empire 05 - Sorcerers of the Frozen Isles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lorrah Jean)

blind swordsman.

But even as Torio held the two at bay, the nine other bandits leaped from their horses and began to climb
over the granite block, aided by the ropes still slung around it.

"WulfstonтАФthey're climbing over the stone! Retreat!"

The Adept, though, took another action. The ropes around the mighty stone blazed into flame, and the
bandits dropped off, yowling, sucking at burned hands.

Starting fires, Torio knew, was one of the easiest of Adept skills, taking very little power. As the flame
sizzled around the ropes to where he fought with the two bandits, one of them started at the noise,
allowing Torio to get in under his guard and skewer him.

As a Reader, Torio had to deal swift death or suffer with his victim. He shoved his keen-edged sword
upward to pierce the man's heart.

The other man's fear sweat was a stench in Torio's nostrils, but in terror he slashed at the Reader,
forgetting what little style he had had as he drove the younger man back with the sheer power of panic.

Torio evaded his blows, letting him waste the charge of adrenaline, waiting for an openingтАФ

But Wulfston did not wait. Seeing Torio apparently being beaten back, he stopped the man's heart, and
the bandit dropped at Torio's feet.

Just as Torio looked toward Wulfston, though, the fire consuming the thick ropes around the huge rock
reached the undersideтАФand as their support collapsed to ashes the stone shifted and slid.

Wulfston grasped the moment. Working with the already-moving stone, he sent it skidding sideways,
right toward the bandits on the pathway, crushing them to death against the side of the quarry.

Torio gasped with their death agony, but in moments it was over, and he turned to Wulfston just asтАФ

Above them, on the edge of the quarry, more bandits appeared. Minor Adepts, they joined hands and
concentrated togetherтАФjust as they must have done to crush Bevan under that rock! It was all a trapтАФa
ruse to draw Wulfston here and use up his powers so that he was helpless before their minor abilities.

A sheet of flame rose out of the pathway. Wulfston swore as he and Torio ducked away from it, the
Adept stumbling with weariness.

"Why didn't you Read them?" Wulfston demanded.

"They were braced to use their powers," Torio explained. "With everything else going onтАФ"

But even as he spoke, the gang at the top of the quarry were focusing on him.

He felt his heart falter. Pain clutched at his chest as he gasped, "Wulfston, they'reтАФ"

Wulfston saw at once that the young Reader was in pain, and Torio felt Adept power set his heart back
into a normal pattern. But how much strength could Wulfston have left?