"Sheri S. Tepper - The True Game 1 - King's Blood Four" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

which meandered its way through sand banks, red in the tilting sun, wide as a half-day's march and no
deeper than my toes. A tumbled ruin threw long shadows on the far side, some old town or fortification,
and Chance got out the charts to see where we were. We crouched over them, aware after a moment that
Tossa was not with us. We found her on a pinnacle, staring back the way we had come, frowning.
"Men on the way, " she said. "Numbers of them." She put the glass back to her eyes and searched among
the trees we had only lately left.
"Trail following. Riddle didn't think they'd follow you!" She sounded frightened.
Chance borrowed the glass. "They've stopped for the night? Can't tell. No sign of fire, but they've not
come from under the trees yet. Ah. An Armiger, lads. And a Tragamor.."
Tossa exclaimed, "But they are powerless within the boundaries. " Still, she was frightened..
Chance nodded. "Yes, but they have blades and spears and fustigars to smell us out. They have more
strength than we. And the boundaries are too close. The river marks them, doesn't it?"
She nodded. Yarrel was thinking, his face knotted.
"Let the girl go away to the side, " he suggested, "while we take to the river. They aren't following her.
The river will confuse the fustigars. They have no Seer with them? No Pursuivant?"
Chance told him he saw none, but Tossa would have none of it. She had been sent to guide us out, and
she would guide us out. "We will all go by the river, quickly, before they can get up here to see which
way we went. "
Strangely, as we went down the hogback and into the river, I began to think of the boundaries and what
they meant to the people who lived there. They were all pawns here, I thought, with no strength in them
except their arms and their wits. In this land the Armiger could not rise into the air like a hawk on the
wind; the Tragamor could not move the stones beneath our feet so that we stumbled and fell. In this land,
we were almost their equals; no Chill Demesne would grow around us, blooming like a hideous flower
with us at its center. Almost, I smiled. Now I recoil when I remember that almost smile, that sudden,
unconsidered belief that we and those who followed were on equal footing. We galloped down the slope
and into the river as dusk came, almost gaily, Chance muttering that we would run down the river then
cut back into the Immutable land. The water splattered up beneath our feet; Tossa reached out to seize my
hand in hers and hasten me along. When she fell, I thought she had stumbled. I mocked her clumsiness,
teasingly, and only when I had prodded her impatiently with a foot did I see the feathered shaft
protruding from her back. Then I screamed, the sound hovering in the air around us like a smell. Chance
came and lifted her and there was no more smiling as we raced down that stream for our lives, angling
away into a creek which fed it at a curve of the river, praying those who followed would go on down the
flow rather than up the little stream, running, running, until at last we came to earth among trees in a
swampy place, Tossa beside us, barely breathing.
I could feel the shaft in me, through the lung, feel the bubbling breath, the slow well of blood into my

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 KING'S BLOOD FOUR - Sheri S. Tepper

nostrils, the burning pain of it as though it were hot iron.. I sobbed with it, clutching at my own chest
until Chance shook me silent.
"Be still, " he hissed at me. "You are not hurt. Be still or we are dead. "
The pain was still there, but I knew then that it was not from the arrow but from some other hurt. I hurt
because Tossa hurt; it was as though I were she. There was no reason for this. I didn't even blame it upon
"love, " for I had loved Mandor and had never felt his hurts as my own. This spun in my head as I gulped
hot tears into my throat and choked upon them, smothering sound. Away to the south we could hear the
baying of the fustigars, a dwindling cacophony following the river away, toward the border. The soil we
lay on was wet and cold; the smell of rot and fungus was heavy. I heard Yarrel ask, "Is she dead?" and
Chance reply that she breathed, but barely.
"A Healer, " I said. "Chance, I must find a Healer. Where?"