"Tamora Pierce - Protector Of The Small 4 - Lady Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

soldiers, not hunting for a mage whose location was unknown.
"Maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe I'll ride out one day and find there's a line of killing devices from the
palace right up to the Nothing Man's door," she grumbled, easing herself out from under her covers. Kel
never threw off her blankets. With a number of sparrows and her dog sharing her bed, she might smother
a friend if she hurried. Even taking care, she heard muffled cheeps of protest. "Sorry," she told her
companions, and set her feet on the cold flagstones of her floor.
She made her way across her dark room and opened the shutters on one of her windows. Before her
lay a courtyard and a stable where the men of the King's Own kept their horses. The torches that lit the
courtyard were nearly out. The pearly radiance that came to the eastern sky in the hour before dawn fell
over snow, stable and the edges of the palace wall beyond.
The scant light showed a big girl of eighteen, broad-shouldered and solid-waisted, with straight,
mouse-brown hair cut short below her earlobes and across her forehead. She had a dreamer's hazel
eyes, set beneath long, curling lashes, odd in contrast to the many fine scars on her hands and the muscles
that flexed and bunched under her nightshirt. Her nose was still unbroken and delicate after eight years of
palace combat training, her lips full and quicker to smile than frown. Determination filled every inch of her
strong body.
Motion in the shadows at the base of the courtyard wall caught her eye. Kel gasped as a winged
creature waddled out into the open courtyard, as ungainly on its feet as a vulture. The flickering torchlight
caught and sparked along the edges of metal feathers on wings and legs. Steel legs, flexible and limber,
ended in steel-clawed feet. Between the metal wings and above the metal legs and feet was human flesh,
naked, hairless, grimy, and in this case, male.
The Stormwing looked at Kel and grinned, baring sharp steel teeth. His face was lumpy and
unattractive, marked by a large nose, small eyes and a thin upper lip with a full lower one. He had the
taunting smile of someone born impudent. "Startle you, did I?" he enquired.
Kel thanked the gods that the cold protected her sensitive nose, banishing most of the Stormwing's foul
stench. Stormwings loved battlefields, where they tore corpses to pieces, urinated on them, smeared
them with dung, then rolled in the resulting mess. The result was a nauseating odor that, in the heat, would
make the strongest stomach rebel. Her teachers had explained that the purpose of Stormwings was to
make people think twice before they chose to fight, knowing what might happen to the dead when
Stormwings arrived. So far they hadn't done much good as far as Kel could see: people still fought
battles and killed each other, Stormwings or no. Tortall's Stormwing population was thriving. This was
the first she'd seen on palace grounds, though.
Kel glared at him. "Get out of here, you nasty thing! Shoo!"
"Is that any way to greet a future companion?" demanded the Stormwing, raising thin brown brows.
"You people are getting ready to stage an entertainment for our benefit up north. You'll be seeing a lot of
us this year."
"Not if I can help it," Kel retorted. Grimly she walked across her dark room, stubbing her toe on the
trunk at the foot of her bed. She cursed and limped over to the racks where she kept her weapons.
When she found her bow and a quiver of arrows, she strung the bow and hopped back to her window.
She placed the quiver on her window seat, and put an arrow on the string. Outside, the courtyard was
empty. The Stormwing's footprints in the snow ended right under Kel's window.
Scowling, Kel looked up and around. There he was, perched on the peak of the stable roof, a
steel-dressed portent of war. Kel raised her bow. She wouldn't actually kill the creature, just make him
go away.
He looked down at her, cackled, and took to the air, spiraling out of Kel's range. He flipped his tail at
her three times in a mockery of a wave, then sailed away over the palace wall.
"I hate those things," grumbled Kel as she removed the bowstring. The thought of anyone's dead
providing Stormwings with entertainment gave her the shudders. And she knew there was a good chance
that she might become a Stormwing toy very soon.
There was no point in going back to sleep now. Instead, Kel cleaned up, dressed, and took down her