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

she demanded. "Look, Maggur Rathhausak is king now. He'll march once Scanra thaws out. The
king will be sending the army - that includes me - north as soon as he can. You have to tell me
where to look so I can leave before that happens! If I go now, I won't be disobeying the king. We
mortals call that treason."
I cannot, the Chamber said.
Kel disagreed with a phrase she had learned from soldiers.
I am not part of your idea of time, the Chamber told her. Apparently her language had not
offended it. You mortals are like fish swimming in a globe of glass. That globe is your world. You do not
see beyond it. I am all around that globe, everywhere at once. I am in your yesterdays and tomorrows
just as I am in your today, and it all looks the same to me. I only know you will find yourself in that one's
path. When you do, you must stop him. He perverts life and the living. That must not continue. Its tone
changed; later, Kel would think the thing had been disgruntled. I thought you would like the
warning.
Kel crossed her arms over her chest, disgusted. "So you don't know when I'll see that piece of
human waste. The Nothing Man. Blayce. Or that warrior of his, what's his name? Stenmun."
No.
"And you don't know where they are."
Your ideas of countries and borders are meaningless tome.
"But you thought I'd be happy to know the one who's making the killing devices, who's
murdering children, will come my way. Sometime. Somewhere."
You must right the balance between mortals and the divine, the balance that is my reason to exist. That
creature defies life and death. I require you to put a stop to it. Your satisfaction is not my concern.
Kel wanted to scream her frustration, but years of hiding her emotions at the Yamani court
stopped her. Besides, screaming was a spoiled child's response, never hers. And as a knight at
eighteen, she was supposed to act like an adult, whatever that meant. She tried one last time.
"The sooner, the better."
You will meet him, and you will fix this. Now go away. The iron door swung open.
"Can I at least talk to people about this? Tell them that you showed me this?" she demanded.
If you think they will believe you. You are not considered to be a seer or a mage, and your own mages
know the name of Blayce already. They just cannot find him.
Kel responded with another word learned from soldiers and walked out of the Chamber.
The news of Maggur's coronation in Scanra sped the process of gathering Tortallan fighters and
supplies. Preparation for war filled the hours at the palace. Every knight who was not already detailed
was summoned to the throne room. The king, queen and their advisers told the knights that they were
now in military service to the crown for the length of the war, and gave them their instructions. Kel
remained under Lord Raoul's orders for the moment. She readied her own gear as she helped him
assemble all that his men would require.
Weather mages turned their attention to the northern mountains. A week later they told the monarchs
that while it would be hard going, Tortall's army could move out. The next day the warriors readied for
departure in the guesthouses and fields around the Great Road North, assembling knights, men of the
King's Own, six Groups of the Queen's Riders, ten companies of soldiers from the regular army, and
wagon after wagon of supplies. It would take three times longer to reach their border posts than it would
if they waited another two weeks for the sleet, snow and mud of the northern roads to clear. It would be
worth the trouble if they could be in place when the Scanrans came to call.
At dawn on the first morning of the last week of March, the army's vanguard of knights and lords of
the realm set off on the muddy road north. Kel rode Hoshi, with Jump in one of her saddlebags and
sparrows clinging to every part of her and her equipment. On the bluffs north of the city she murmured a
soft prayer to Mithros for victory and one to the Goddess for the wounded to come. She was starting a
prayer to Sakuyo, the Yamani god of jokes and tricks, when Lord Raoul snarled a curse. She looked at
him, startled: he was riding just in front of her with the King's Champion, Alanna, the realm's only other