"R. Garcia y Robertson - Firebird" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robertson R Garcia Y)

Topping the ridge, she stopped to stare. This was as far as the slave collar allowed her to go. Below her
the forest ended. Rolling steppe spread out from the foot of the ridge, broken by loops of river, dark
patches of plowland, and the onion domes of village churches. Between her and the steppe, guarding the
fords of the Dys, stood a huge round tower seven stories tall with walls twenty feet thickтАФByeli Zamak,
the White Castle. Smoke poured from the tower. Katya pictured the inferno inside, fed by grain and oil
stored in the basement, burning up through the wooden floors, feeding on gilt furniture, Barbary
tapestries, Italian paintings, and canopied beds. A cornerstone of her world was consumed in flames.

She came from these settled lands. Somewhere out there she had been born. Somewhere out there her
family was massacredтАФfor the black earth beyond the woods was sown with bones and watered by
blood. Constant strife had consumed her family, and almost made an end to her. She had begged in those
villages, and slept in the painted doorways of those churches, waking to find crows and ravens waiting to
make a meal of her.

When she was given to the Witch, all that changed. Her slave collar kept her penned in the
woodsтАФwhere the worst she need fear was leopards and troll-bears. Even when old King Demitri died,
Byeli Zamak remained, towering over the fords of the DysтАФthe gatehouse to the Iron Wood. King and
gold-domed capital were the stuff of faerie tales, but Byeli Zamak was solid and real, part of KatyaтАЩs
landscape, built by earth giants from native stone. And now it burned. Her first thought was to tell the
Bone Witch.

тАЬKatea-kateaтАжтАЭ the firebird called again, this time from right overhead. Looking up, she saw the
flame-colored jay perched on the limb of a tall larch, scoffing and chuckling. Clown prince of the bird
clan, the fire orange jay was a wickedly mischievous trickster, a merciless nest robber and accomplished
mimic. Katya had heard him perfectly imitate the screaming whistle of a hawk, just to see what havoc he
could wreak.

тАЬIs this what you saw?тАЭ Katya tilted her head toward the inferno below. Just like a jay to revel in
someone elseтАЩs misfortune. He squawked back at her, this time giving the man call. Jays greeted every
predator with a different call. Warnings did little good if you did not know whether to look out for a
leopard, or a hawk, or a lynx. The man call was totally distinct. Jays did not use it for her or the Witch.

Hearing a waxwing whistle, Katya turned to see a roe deer bound up the slope and disappear over the
ridge. Something was coming. Something alarming enough to flush a doe from cover. The firebird flew
off, still making the man call.

From below came the weighty clump of slow hoofbeats climbing the ridge. A horse was coming up from
the fords, carrying something heavy and clanking. She whispered her invisibility spell. So long as she
remained still and silent, no one could see her. Or so the Witch said. So far it had never failed.

She watched the rider top the ridge. Bareheaded, he rode slumped forward, eyes half shut, his
soot-stained blue and white surcoat covering a body encased in steelтАФa man-at-arms, maybe even a
knight, just managing to stay atop a big gray charger. Her heart went out to him. He looked so hurt and
handsome, his long elegant eyelashes wet with tears. Bloody clots in his fashionable pudding-basin haircut
dripped red streaks down proud cheekbones, past genteel lips. His beardless face made him look young,
marking him as a foreigner. Or a eunuch.

Here was her storm petral: strong and beautiful, but a sure sign of the whirlwind to come. So long as
Byeli Zamak had held for the King, only unarmed serfs crossed the fords into the forest, to gather sticks