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

ran along the blade-like limbs. No living beasts made their home in the Iron WoodтАФjust trolls and siren
spirits, witches and the walking dead.

Happy to be nearly home, she threaded her way through the thorny metal maze. Finally a clearing
appeared ahead, a white patch amid the black tangle. She led the big war horse up to a tall white hut
made entirely of bones, long white thigh bones as big as a man, stacked one atop the other like grisly
logs. Serfs called them dragon bones, but Katya knew better. They came from a long-haired,
elephant-trunked monster that once roamed the northern tundra, bigger by far than any Barbary elephant.
She had seen their great curved tusks in a forest bone pit, along with bits of the hairy hide.

Huge antlers from an ancient giant elk hung above the Bone HutтАЩs leather door. Swallows nested in
nooks beneath the eves. Little chestnut-throated birds peered out of the mud nests at her. Their parents
flew back and forth, chattering at her, then streaking off in the direction of Long Lake, coming back with
ants, gnats, wasps, and assassin bugs to feed their young.

Slowly the skin door swung open, and the Bone Witch emerged. Older than sin, and grim as death, the
Witch wore a knuckle bone necklace and a linen winding sheet for a dress. White hair hung down to
bare skeletal feet. Around her thin waist was a wormwood belt, supporting the thief-skin bag that held
her charms. The horse backed and snorted at the sight of her.
She muttered a charm and the shying charger relaxed. тАЬA beautiful beast,тАЭ the Bone Witch declared.
тАЬWhere did you find him?тАЭ

тАЬIn the woods.тАЭ Katya had always brought lost or strayed animals out of the woods. Fallen eagle chicks.
Little lame squirrels. Orphaned leopard cubs. This war horse was by far her most impressive find. She
made no mention of his master. The Bone Witch had warned her not to bring men into the Iron Wood.
Abandoned cubs and a weary war horse were one thingтАФbut no stray knights. No matter how
handsome and helpless they looked.

She held out her basket to show she had not wasted the whole morning, saying, тАЬByeli Zamak has been
burned.тАЭ

The Witch nodded, тАЬI smelled it on the wind.тАЭ It was impossible to surprise the Bone Witch.

тАЬAnd a leopard drank from the pond beneath the ridge.тАЭ

The Witch nodded again. тАЬThree nights ago, when the moon was full.тАЭ Accepting the fungus, the Witch
told her to give the gray charger a rubdown, тАЬAnd see he has grass and water. You cannot bring things
home unless you care for them.тАЭ

тАЬI will, I will,тАЭ she assured the Witch. And went to work at once, taking the horse around to the paddock
behind the bone hut, rubbing him down, giving him water and barley. Filling a bark basket with food, she
got out the WitchтАЩs steel sickle, saying she would go cut grass at Long Lake. Nothing a horse could live
on grew in the Iron Wood.

The Witch sniffed her basket. тАЬAnd you will take food to the knight hiding in the cave by the spring?тАЭ

She gave a guilty nod.

тАЬYou are free to play with whatever you find in the woods, so long as your chores do not go wanting.тАЭ