"Jennifer Roberson - Sword Dancer 3 - Sword Maker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

more than blackened pockets in a shadow-clad face lacking definition or
expression. The beauty remained, but changed. Altered by tension,
obsession,
pain.
Behind me, tied to a tree, the stud snorted, stomped, pawed a thin
layer of
slush away from winter-brown turf. Pawing again and again, stripping
away even
the turf until what he dug was a hole.
Horses can't talk, not like humans; they do what they can with ears,
teeth,
hooves. What he told me now was he didn't want to eat. Didn't want to
sleep.
Didn't want to spend the night tied to a bare-branched tree, chilled to
the bone
by a Northern wind that wouldn't--quite--quit. What he wanted was to
leave. To
go on. To head south toward his desert homeland where it is never, ever
cold.
"Not my fault," I repeated firmly. "Hoolies, bascha, you and that
storm-born
sword of yours... what did you expect me to do? I'm a sword-dancer. Put
me in a
circle with a sword in my hands, and I dance. For pay, for show, for
honor--for
all those things most men are afraid to name, for fear of showing too
much...
well, I'm not afraid, Del--all I know is you left me no choice but to
cut you,
coming at me like that with that magicked sword of yours--what did you
expect? I
did what I had to. What was needed, for both of us, if for different
reasons." I
scratched angrily at the scars in my right cheek: four deep-scored claw
marks,
now white with age, cutting through the beard. "I tried like hoolies to
make you
quit, to make you leave that thrice-cursed island before it came to
something
we'd both regret, but you left me no choice. You stepped into that
circle all on
your own, Del... and you paid the price. You found out just how good
the
Sandtiger is after all, didn't you?"
No answer. Of course not; she still thought she was better. But I had
proven
which of us was superior in the most eloquent fashion of all.
Swearing at the cold, I resettled the wool cloak I wore, wrapping it
more
closely around shoulders. Brown hair uncut for far too long blew into