"Brian Thomsen - The Nobles 04 - The Mage in the Iron Mask" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thomsen Brian M)

the middle of the night, Donal quickly recognized the signal from the Thayan agents on the
other side of the gate. He pursed his lips together, returned the signal, and let them in.
"He is over here," Donal instructed, not wasting time with introductions. "Quickly bind his
hands be-hind his back with silken cords."
The shadowriders quickly complied; their telltale beards, and dirty and greasy manes
quickly revealed their identities to the older wizard.
Mercenaries, he thought. Dirty hands for dirty work.
"You should also gag him," Donal instructed with great authority, now that he knew that
they were merely hired help, "and perhaps put a sack over his head as well."
 They once again quickly complied, and hoisted the dead weight that was Rassendyll up
onto the back of a horse, and bound him to the saddle.
"Where is my mount?" Donal insisted, pausing only to pick up his pack. "We mustn't keep
the Thar-chioness waiting."
The tallest of the mercenaries, who had remained mounted and in the shadows all during
the abduc-tion of the young wizard, stepped down from his steed as if to offer it to the
self-described wart on the face of Faerun.
"You are right," he replied drawing closer to Donal, "we mustn't keep the Tharchioness
waiting."
As he drew closer, Donal began to make out the emblematic tattoos that adorned the tall
one's cheeks, and the wig that had fallen off his pate and was now resting in the cowl that
drooped behind his robe.
Donal dropped his pack, and opened his mouth as if to cry out.
"She sends her regards," the tall one said, quickly removing a crystal wand from the folds
of his robe, and thrusting it into the portly wizard's abdomen, then ripping it upward until it
had succeeded in splitting the lower half of the old wizard's heart, and then adding, "but she
regrets that you will not be joining us. She has this thing about traitors to the cause of Szass
Tam, and specifically not giving them a second chance to betray us."
The tall one regained his mount in as little time as it took for Donal to fall to the ground.
As the shadowriders disappeared into the dark-ness, their hoofbeats diminishing in the
distance, Donal quietly died with a faint trace of a smile on his cruelly misshapen lips, his
final thought acquiescing to the insight of the Tharchioness, followed by a chuckle at a secret
joke, and a last groan of pain that delivered him unto his expected damnation.
*****
Rassendyll came to in less than an hour, his body aching from the jostling caused by the
steed he was bound to, and the awkward positioning of his bound body upon it. He tried to
cry out, but couldn't be-cause of the horse's bit that had been fastened to his face as if he
were some uncooperative plow horse in need of direction. Had his head not been covered
with a sack, he would have realized that it was still the middle of the night. As it was, the only
sense left to him for observation was his hearing, and as the shadowriders rode in silence, it
too didn't seem to be of much help . . . until, quite unexpectedly, his steed stopped in unison
with the rest of the party, and a commotion seemed to break out.
"Who goes there? Show yourselves," the young wizard thought he heard through the
muffling effect of the sack. This was followed by a screech of horses, several clashes of
steel, and more than a few cries of pain, as a party of superior force soon overtook his
abductors, and mercilessly slaughtered them.
Rassendyll could barely maintain his joy. He still had no idea why he had been abducted,
nor how, nor where he was right now. The only thing he knew was that he was being
rescued.
"Where is Donal?" he heard.
"Back at the Retreat. I killed the traitor."