"Elizabeth Moon - Fool's Gold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

"I knew you'd come through," said Monica.
***
As Mirabel Stonefist trudged glumly across a lumpy wet moor, she thought she should
have chosen "stonehead" for her fighting surname instead of "stonefist." She'd broken
fingers often enough to disprove the truth of her chosen epithet, and over a moderately
long career more than one person had commented on her personality in granitic terms.
Stonehead, bonehead, too stubborn to quit and too dumb to figure a way out . . .


She had passed three abandoned, ruined villages already, the thatched roofs long since
rotted, a few tumbled stone walls blacked by fire. She'd found hearthstones standing on
end like grave markers, and not one coin of any metal.


And she'd found dragon tracks. Not, to someone who had been in the unfortunate
expedition to kill the Grand Dragon Karshnak of Kreshnivok, very big dragon tracks, but
big enough to trip over and fall splat in. It had been raining for days, as usual in autumn,
and the dragon tracks were all full of very cold water.


Her biggest mistake, she thought, had been birth order. If she'd been born after Gervais,
she'd have been the cute little baby sister, and no one would ever have called on her to
solve problems for the family. But as the oldestтАФthe big sister to them allтАФshe'd been
cast as family protector and family servant from the beginning.


And her next biggest mistake, at least in the present instance, had been telling the Ladies'
Aid and Armor Society that she was just going to check on things. With that excuse, no
one else could find the time to come with her, so here she was, trudging across a cold,
wet slope by herself, in dragon country.


They must really hate her. They must be slapping each other on the back, back home, and
bragging on how they'd gotten rid of her. They mustтАФ


"Dammit, 'Bel, wait up!" The wind had dropped from its usual mournful moan, and she
heard the thin scream from behind. She whirled. ThereтАФa long way back and belowтАФan
arm waved vigorously. She blinked. As if a dragon-laid spell of misery had been lifted,
her mood rose. Heads bobbed among the wet heather. TwoтАФthree? She wasn't sure, but
she wasn't alone anymore, and she felt almost as warm as if she were leaning on a wall in
the palace courtyard in the sun.


They were, of course, grumbling when they came within earshot. "Should've called
yourself Mirabel LonglegsтАФ" Siobhan Bladehawk said. "Don't you ever sleep at night?
We were beginning to think we'd never catch up."