"Joel Rosenberg - Hour of the Octopus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)
spider or a razorfoot could help to sort out the careless.
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"If I may ask, why is there a path of the dragon?"
He looked at me like I had dung on my face. Sometimes I should learn to keep my mouth shut.
'Today we will take the path of the deer," he said. "I suspect we may find some game down there."
There seemed to be a fair chance of that, all things con-sidered. After the fish and the quail coming
along at pre-cisely the right moment for a convenient shot, I didn't have to raise kazuh to figure that both
had been prepared, that hidden huntsmen had released the quail into flight and freed a couple of fish from
around the bend.
Odds were some deer stood bound and blindfolded somewhere near the path of the deer, ready to
be freed and slapped on the rump, sent bouncing down the path toward our waiting bows. Taking it a
step further, the odds were equally good that a backup deer was waiting.
He had his arrow in the hand he used to pull an arrow from my quiver. "Here. And try to shoot at the
game this time." He gestured that I should precede him. "After you."
The path widened ahead, lined on both sides by a carpet of well-trimmed grasses.
It was hardly a surprise to me when a three-point buck soon bounded across. He paused for a
moment, eyes wide.
I pulled back my arrow and let fly, again slapping the bowstring against my hurt forearm. Needless to
say, the ar-row went Powers-know-where, but a breeze brushed my cheek and an arrow spunged into
the deer's side.
The deer gave me a reproachful look and took a half step before his legs went all loose and
disjointed, and he dropped to the ground, legs splaying this way and that.
A brace of huntsmen leaped out of the brush and were already dressing it out before it stopped
twitching.
I turned to see him standing with an arrow nocked. An-other arrow.
"I had no chance to shoot, but no need," he said. "A heart shot, and for your first time out,
magnificent!" He clapped a hand to my shoulder. "The huntsmen will dress it out and lash it to your
saddle; you will take it back to the keep. You must join me at table tonight to celebrate this meal. I'm
sure Father will insist."
"Yes, I am sure your father will insist, Lord Arefai," I said. "I'm very sure of that."
Now I knew how a waterwalker felt. You run just as fast as you can over the surface, not stopping
for a moment as you dip your beak here and there, because if you stop to think about how impossible
your position is, you'll sink beneath the waves never to be seen again.
I should have known this hunting expedition couldn't have been as simple as it seemed. Thank the
Powers I faced only another week of this; Toshtai, Arefai, and Edelfaule would be off to Glen Derenai
for Arefai's wed-ding, probably leaving Den Oroshtai under the care of Dun Lidjun, and that would give
me some time to breathe. Dun Lidjun didn't care if I plucked a flower, or produced a puzzle; all he
wanted me to do was to stay out of his way.
Arefai, on the other hand, had been just a tad too clever, just a crumb too indirect. Not his way at all.
I should have spotted it earlier: a horse had been wait-ing for me. It had always been Arefai's
intention that I go on the hunt with him, and it apparently had always been his intention that I kill some
game, thereby giving him a credible excuse to invite a lowly bourgeois to dinner.
That was subtle, and indirect, and very much unArefai.
Things were starting to get complicated, and when things get complicated, it's good to talk them over
with a friend. Sometimes it's necessary to talk them over with somebody.
The trouble, of course, was that I didn't really have any friends, not in the keep. The closest thing I
had to a friend was Arefai, and he had just gone through a performance intended to bring me to the
formal dinner that evening. It wasn't his idea; Arefai didn't have ideas. He wasn't built for it.
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