"Mickey Zucker Reichert - Herald's Rescue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

hopefully one that included men with healing knowledge and strength.
As the Companion's long strides ate up a mile, Santar caught sight of farmers too far away to hear
his call. Suddenly, it occurred to him where the Companion was headed. Not toward the river. Recent
rains had swollen the waters past their banks and well over the ford. Santar glanced around the stallion's
neck. They approached the river at breakneck speed, and Santar knew it had surged to well above his
head. "Stop!" he shouted.
To Santar's surprise, the horse obeyed. It drew up with a suddenness that should have sent him
flying, but that motion proved as fluid as every other. Instead, they came to an effortless halt just a few
steps in front of the flooded fording. Uncertain of his next chance, Santar dismounted.
The Companion made a mournful sound deep in his throat. He plunged toward the water, then
looked longingly at Santar. He lunged forward again, this time splashing at the edges of the pool.
Though it was against his better judgment, Santar approached the Companion. "I know you're
intelligent, and you can understand me."
The horse pawed the ground furiously, attention beyond the water where the road continued
eastward through the Tangled Forest. Santar had only gone this far a few times, and then only in the
company of his father and brothers. The sun already lay well behind him. Unless the Herald lay just past
the ford, they would wind up in the woods at night, never a pleasant prospect even in broad daylight on
the well-traveled path. Demons owned the forest nights, ready to steal the soul of any man foolish enough
to wander into their realm.
Santar continued, "It might take a few more seconds to gather a party, but it'll be well worth the
trouble to save yourтАФ"
The Companion bellowed out an impatient sound, then slammed a hoof into the river, splashing
muddy droplets in all directions.
Santar bit his lip, trusting the Companion's judgment. He knew the bond between Companion and
Herald surpassed anything he would ever understand. This horse came to me for help, and I'm going
to give it. I'm not going to let another man die for my fear. "All right. Let's go." Catching a handful of
mane, he dragged himself to the stallion's withers again.
Without a moment's hesitation, the Companion sprang into the ford.
Cold pinpoints of water splashed Santar's face and arms, and his legs seemed suddenly plunged in
ice. He wound his hands into the Companion's mane, gripping desperately, as the water surged and
sucked around them, threatening to drag him from the stallion's back. He watched a massive branch
swirling wildly in the current, lost to his sight in moments. The understanding of true danger finally reached
him. Having thought only of the bare possibility of demons, he had not considered how much the horse
would struggle in the current, how dire the swim, that the churning current could pluck him like a twig
from the animal's back and send him helplessly spinning to his doom. Though an able swimmer, he could
never win against such a force.
Apparently immersed in the swim, the Companion paid the man on his back no notice, though
Santar's death grip on his neck had to have become burdensome. The water slapped and tugged at
Santar's sod-den clothing, threatening a hold that he gradually winched tighter. Focused on his grip,
Santar put his trust wholly in the Companion, blindly depending on him to bring them safely ashore and
never once considering that the stallion's strength, too, might fail. It was a Companion, the most clever
and competent animal alive and used to having a human wholly reliant upon it. Not wholly reliant, Santar
reminded himself. We're talking about Heralds here, plenty capable and talented in their own right.
Only then, Santar thought to worry that his own puny normalness might disrupt the tenuous balance, that
the horse might count on him to perform with the ability of a Herald. We're dead! By the time the idea
materialized, the Companion gave a mighty surge that hauled both of them from the water.
Glad to find himself on dry land, Santar leaped from the horse and wrapped his arms around the
nearest tree. We made it! Gradually, the doubts raised by his earlier thoughts intruded. The torrent had
carried them far enough downstream that he could no longer find the road. The horizon cut a crescent
from the lowest edge of sun, giving the woods a gray-orange cast that seemed supernatural. Over the