"Karl Edward Wagner - Ravens Eyrie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

and she wished Greshha were here to hold her. "And I can see
something else walking the ridges. There's a man, all in black with
a great black cloak that flaps behind him. A man who hunts with
the black hound. I can't see him clear because the night hides
himтАФbut I know I mustn't look at his face!"
"Stop it!"
The child gasped and looked wonderingly at her mother.
"Talking about it will only make you have the bad dream
again," her mother explained tensely.
 Klesst decided not to mention the other strange man who
walked through her nightmare. "Why are they hunting for me?"
she asked in a frightened whisper. Dared she ask Mother to stay
with her? She again glanced to see if she were angry,
Her mother's face was shadowed, her lips tight and pale. She
spoke in a whisper, as if thinking aloud. "Sometimes when your
soul is so torn with pain and hatred... it can burn you out inside,
so your spirit can never feel anything else... and you can think
thoughts that are different, turn to paths that you wouldn't...
before. And later maybe your soul is burned out and cold... But
the fire of your hatred smoulders and waits... And you know
there's a bad moon risingтАФbut there's no way to hold it back."
A gust of wind rattled dry leaves against the panes. Outside the
lattice window, night was striding over the autumnal ridges.




I
Ridges of Autumn

"How is he?"
Braddeyas shrugged. "Alive, I think, but that's about all. He'll
be dead by morning if we don't stop soon."
Weed spat sourly and nudged his horse alongside the wounded
man's mount. The man slumped over his horse's neck was huge,
but his thick muscled frame was now nerveless, and only the
ropes which held him to his saddle kept him from toppling to the
mountain trail.
Knotting his fingers in the thick red hair, Weed lifted his head.
"Kane! Can you hear me?"
The blood-smeared face was slack and pale, the eyes hidden
under half-closed lids. His lips moved silently, but Weed could
not tell whether there was recognition.
"Then again, he may not last the night even if we do stop
somewhere," Braddeyas commented. "Fever's getting worse, I'd
say."
"Kane!"
No response.
"He's been out of it since the fever set in," Braddeyas went on.
"And he's lost a lot of bloodтАФstill losing some." Absently he