"Robin McKinley - Damar 1 - The Blue Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

from some unfathomable depth of thought, and saw her: their eyes met.
The man's eyes were yellow as gold, the hot liquid gold in a smelter's furnace. Harry found it suddenly
difficult to breathe, and understood the expression on Dedham's face; she almost staggered. Her hand
tightened on the bridle, and the pony dropped its head and mouthed the bit uncomfortably. The heat was
incredible. It was as though a thousand desert suns beat down on her. Magic? she thought from inside the
thunder. Is this what magic is? I come from a cold country, where the witches live in cool green forests.
What am I doing here? She saw the anger the man was holding in check; the anger stared at her through
the yellow eyes, and swept through the glistening white robes. Then it was over. He looked away; he
came down the last steps and past her as if she did not exist; and she cowered out of his way so that no
corner of his white sleeve should touch her. The man with the horses emerged from the shade, riding one
of the chestnuts; and the six others went up to their riders and nuzzled them. The blood bay reached the
king first, and greeted him with a low whinny. Corlath mounted with an easy leap Harry could not even
follow with her eyes, although she could see anger informing the set of his legs against the great stallion's
sides. The horse felt it too; without moving, all its muscles were suddenly taut, and its stillness was the
quiet before battle. The other men mounted. Corlath never looked at them, but the red stallion plunged
forward at a gallop, and the other men followed; and the sound the horses' hooves made on the hard
earth suddenly reminded Harry how unnaturally silent everyone had been since Dedham's last words. The
inaudible thunder faded with the sight of the colored sashes and the bright flanks of the Hill horses. Harry
woke up to who she was, and where; Sir Charles and Jack and Mr. Peterson looked their normal size
again, and she had a raging headache.


CHAPTER THREE
Corlath stared at his horses black-tipped ears. The Hillfolk passed through the gate of the Residency
and Corlath lifted his gaze to rake angrily across the dusty station street, the little dun-colored houses and
shops, the small straggly trees. At a slight shift in his rider's weight the red horse turned off the road. The
harsh clatter of hooves on the packed-dirt road changed to the duller sound of struck sand. He could
hear his men turning off the road behind him; he shook his head in a futile attempt to clear a little space
for thought amid the anger, and leaned back in his saddle, and the horse's pace slowed. There was no
sense in charging across the desert at midday; it was hard on the horses.
The six riders closed up behind him; the two who came forward to ride at his side stole quick looks at
him as they came near, and looked away again as quickly.
Outlanders! Involuntarily his hands, resting lightly on his thighs, curled into fists. He should have
known better than even to try to talk to them. His father had warned him, years ago. But that was before
the Northerners had come so near. Corlath blinked. The heat of his own anger was hard to contain when
there wasn't some use he could put it to; anger was splendidly useful on the battlefield, but he was not
facing any regiments just now that could be tangled in their own feet and knocked over in companies.
Much as he would like, for example, to set fire to the big stupid housean absurd building for the desert: it
must be the sort of thing they lived in in their own countryand watch it crash down around the ears of the
big soft creature who called himself commissioner тАж but spite was for children, and he had been king for
thirteen years, and he bit down on his anger and held it.
He remembered when he was young and before the full flowering of his kelar, of the terrible strength
known ironically as the "Gift," his father had told him that it would often be like this: "We aren't really
much good, except as battle machines, and even there our usefulness is limited. You'll curse it, often
enough, far more often than you'll be glad of it, but there you are." He sighed, and looked wryly at his
son. "They say that back in the Great Days it was different, that men were made big enough to hold itand
had wit enough to understand it. It was Lady Aerin, the story goes, that first knew her Gift and broke it
to her will, but that was long ago, and we're smaller now."
Corlath had said, hesitantly: "They say also that the Gift was once good for other things: healing and
calming and taming."