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

"You!" He dove and missed. His knuckles barked against hatchboards. Taen skinned past and ran for
the taffrail.

"Fires!" the sailor cursed. At her heels Taen heard a scuffle of movement as he untangled himself from
the binnacle.

Torches moved amidships. At the edge of her vision, Taen saw the black outline of a foot lancer's helm
above the com-panionway stair. Driven and desperate, she flung herself up-ward against the beaded
wood of the rail. Hard hands caught her, yanked her back. She flailed wildly, balance lost, and the sea
breeze snatched the feather from her fingers. It skimmed upward out of reach.

Taen felt herself shaken till her teeth rattled. Through blurred eyes she watched Anskiere's feather whirl
away on the wind. It shimmered, exploded with a snap into a tawny falcon marked with black. Violet and
blue against the stars, a heavy triple halo of light circled its outstretched wings. Taen smelled light-ning on
the air. The man above her swore, and below, a crowd began to gather in the ship's waist.

"Stormfalcon!" a sailor cried. His companions shouted mal-edictions, threaded through with Anskiere's
name, as the bird overhead took flight. Wind gusted, screaming, through the rigging. Half quenched by
spray blown off the reef, the torches streamed ragged tails of smoke.

Smothered by the cloth of her captor's sleeve, Taen heard someone yell for a bow. But the falcon
vanished into the night long before one could be brought. The sergeant rounded angrily on the girl held
pinioned by the deckhand.

"Is that the brat the boy came looking for? I'll whip the blazes out of her. She's caused us a skinful of
trouble!"

But the voice of the black sorcerer cut like a whip through the confusion."Leave the child be."

Startled stillness fell; the wind had died, leaving the mourn-ful rush of the swells etched against silence.
The onlookers shifted hastily out of the sorcerer's path as he approached the sergeant who held Taen in
his arms.

"The harm is done." The sorcerer's voice was as brittle as shells. "The stormfalcon is already flown. The
girl, I'm told, is valued by Anskiere. Give her to me. He will soon be forced to recall his bird."

Taen was passed like a bundle of goods to the sorcerer. The touch of his bony wrists, crisscrossed still
with bloodstains, caused her at last to be sick.

"Fires!" The sergeant laughed. "Take her with my blessing." "Go and tell Tathagres what has passed,"
said the sorcerer, and the sergeant's mirth died off as though choked.

Below decks, a guard twisted a key in a heavy padlock. With a creak of rusted hinges, a door opened
into a darkness filled with the sour smell of mildewed canvas. The black sor-cerer pushed forward and
swore with impatience. Nervously, the boatswain on his heels lifted the lantern higher; light flick-ered
over a bunched mass of folded sails and the gaunt outline of a man chained to a ring in the bulkhead. A
deckhand's cotton replaced the captive's ruined robe and the gleam of enchanted fetters on his wrists
was buried under baggy cuffs.

The black sorcerer studied Anskiere with contempt. "I've brought you a gift." He threw back a fold of