"Melanie Rawn - Dragon Star 3 - Skybowl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

Goddess help us, she thought wearily, and went to put her youngest to bed.
Pol stood in the middle of his bedchamber, wondering numbly how and why he was there. Certainly
not to sleep. Restlessness had seized him as surely as exhaustion, fevered brain and tired body at
constant war, with him as the battlefield and the casualty.
Meiglan.
Rislyn.
Chayla.
Sionell....
Swords stabbing through-iron bars at a caged animal.
He turned as if to escape the pain and saw himself in the wall mirror. Only his own tense face was
reflected, his own sleepless eyes. But within that other mirror, a dark and dangerous
imageтАФcaught? Trapped inside silver and glass, alive only in Fire, silent and helpless....
He watched his own face in the mirror, thinking of that dark reflection. Trapped. Helpless.
Meiglan.
Rislyn.
Chayla.
Sionell....
Oh, Goddess help him ... Sionell....

CHAPTER TWo


The only problem with sneaking into Faolain Lowland was the only thing that allowed Saumer and his
troops to sneak in at all.
Rain.
He'd waited two nights for this storm that would obscure the army's movements. He could, however,
have done very nicely without the deluge that obscured absolutely everything. He couldn't see more
than a handspan from his nose. Torches were a sodden joke, and he didn't know much about conjuring
a fingerflame. So he directed his people down an access tunnel dark as a Sunrunner's nightmare,
listening to curses that told him feet had slipped on the ladder. A nice little shower to keep the
Vellant'im in their shelters, some convenient concealing mistтАФthat was all he'd wanted. Instead he
sent his troops through an entry in the forest floor that reminded him forcibly of a rabbit hole,
and huddled into a sopping cloak that weighed more than if he'd simply draped the wool around his
shoulders while the sheep still wore it.
At last everyone was through the chimney Lady Hollis had described on sunlightтАФa thing Saumer was
convinced he would never see againтАФ-and he began his own descent. As he reached up to shut the
wooden covering, soil around it gave way. A silkweight of muck dumped on his head.
"Lovely," he grumbled, spitting grass, mud, and a few rocks. "Thanks."
But at least the torrents of rain were closed out. Sliding the iron bar home to lock the
entryтАФMirsath had had it
opened a couple of days agoтАФhe climbed down, jumping the last rungs to land in water halfway to
his knees.
Havadi, Prince Kostas' captain and now Saumer's own second-in-command, was waiting, having already
sent the rest of their people on ahead. "Lord Mirsath left a few dry ones for us, my lord," he
said, holding up a lighted torch. "The passage is through there."
Saumer pushed mud-thickened hair from his face and eyed the darkness of the low tunnel uneasily.
"Under the moat. We might as well have swum the thing."
They started off, following dim flashes of fireglow ahead and the sound of more swearing. The
young prince tried to take his mind from the closeness, the cold, and his incredibly soggy self by
concentrating on the torch Havadi held. Having only recently learned that he was faradhi like his