"Janny Wurts - The Cycle of Fire1 - Stormwarden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wurts Janny)

Perhaps she fell over-board." Planks creaked under his bulk as he leaned forward, slitted eyes intent on
the prisoner's face. His features oozed into another smile. "You lied, Anshiri. You said Tathagres had no
means to force your will. But I think now that she does."

Taen woke to her brother's sudden shout.

"No!" His words carried clearly to her hiding place in the ship's galley. "I beg you! WithoutDacsen, my
mother and cousins will starve."

Emien's protest was answered by the drawl of a deckhand. "Cap'n said cut her adrift, boy." Laughter
followed.

Taen shivered. The chilly rims of cooking pots gouged her back as she pressed her face against a crack
in the planking to see out. Torches flickered amidships, casting sultry light over the naked shoulders of the
sailors. Black armor gleamed in their midst. Taen saw her brother hoisted in the grip of a foot lancer. The
boy struggled as a rigging knife flashed in a sailor's hand. A rope parted under its edge, and the
whispered flop ofDacsen's sails silenced as wind swung her bow out of the dark ship's shadow.

"That was unjust." Emien's desperation turned sullen with anger. "I've done no wrong."

The foot lancer shook him. In the pot locker, Taen flinched, and her fingers twisted in the cloth of her
shift.

"Cap'n don't like flotsam dragglin' aft." The sailor sheathed his knife and nodded toward the open hatch
grating. "An" he won't have shore rats messin' his deck, neither. You'll go below."

Helplessly Taen watched the foot lancers drag her brother away. The sailors clustered round the hatch,
grinning at Em-ien's curses; aft, the deck was deserted. Taen bit her lip, hes-itant. Earlier she had seen
the Constable push Anskiere through a companion way left unguarded. Abruptly resolved, the girl crept
from the cranny which had sheltered her and slipped from the galley, the drag of her lame foot masked by
the slap of wavelets against the hull. She paused, trembling, by the main-mast. Torches moved up
forward. A deckhand said something coarse, and a splatter of laughter followed. The white crash of
breakers on the reef to starboard was joined by a hollow scream of splintering plank.

Taen blinked back tears.Dacsen had struck. Through wet eyes she saw sailors crowding the forecastle
rail to watch the sea pound the small sloop to wreckage. With a restraint beyond her years, Taen seized
her opportunity while their backs were turned. She crossed the open deck into the dark gloom of the
quarterdeck.

The latch lifted soundlessly in her hands. Beyond lay a narrow passage lit dimly by the glow which spilled
from the open door of the mate's cabin. Taen heard voices arguing within. She peered through, and saw
the two sorcerers who had bound Anskiere's power leaning over the mate's berth. Bright against the
woolen blanket lay a staff capped with a looped interlace of brass and counterweighted at the base.
Be-side it rested Anskiere's leather satchel.

"Fool!" The sorcerer robed in red gestured with thin splayed fingers at the man in the braid. "You may
know your way about a ship,Captain. You know nothing of craft. Anskiere's staff is harmless."

The captain moved to interrupt. Fast as a cat, the sorcerer in black hooked his sleeve. "Believe him,
Captain. That staff was discharged by Tathagres herself. How else could she have raised the sea and