"Терри Гудкайн. Восьмое правило волшебника, или Обнаженная Империя(engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

seen them before, either, until I came down here. People we've spoken with
say they began appearing only in the last year or two, depending on who's
telling the story. Everyone agrees, though, that they never saw the races
before then."
"Last couple of years ..." Jennsen wondered aloud.
Almost against her will, Kahlan found herself recalling the stories
they'd heard, the rumors, the whispered assertions.
Richard cast the pebbles back down the hardpan trail. "I believe
they're related to falcons."
Jennsen finally crouched to comfort her brown goat, Betty, pressing up
against her skirts. "They can't be falcons." Betty's little white twins,
usually either capering, suckling, or sleeping, now huddled mute beneath
their mother's round belly. "They're too big to be falcons-- they're bigger
than hawks, bigger than golden eagles. No falcon is that big."
Richard finally withdrew his glare from the birds and bent to help
console the trembling twins. One, eager for reassurance, anxiously peered up
at him, licking out its little pink tongue before deciding to rest a tiny
black hoof in his palm. With a thumb, Richard stroked the kids spindly
white-haired leg.
A smile softened his features as well as his voice. "Are you saying you
choose not to see what you've just seen, then?"
Jennsen smoothed Betty's drooping ears. "I guess the hair standing on
end at the back of my neck must believe what I saw."
Richard rested his forearm across his knee as he glanced toward the
grim horizon. "The races have sleek bodies with round heads and long pointed
wings similar to all the falcons I've seen. Their tails often fan out when
they soar but otherwise are narrow in flight."
Jennsen nodded, seeming to recognize his description of relevant
attributes. To Kahlan, a bird was a bird. These, though, with red streaks on
their chests and crimson at the base of their flight feathers, she had come
to recognize.
They're fast, powerful, and aggressive," Richard added. "I saw one
easily chase down a prairie falcon and snatch it out of midair in its
taons."
Jennsen looked to be struck speechless by such an account. Richard had
grown up in the vast forests of Westland and had gone on to be a woods
guide. He knew a great deal about the outdoors and about animals. Such an
upbringing seemed exotic to Kahlan, who had grown up in a palace in the
Midlands. She loved learning about nature from Richard, loved sharing his
excitement over the wonders of the world, of life. Of course, he had long
since come to be more than a woods guide. It seemed a lifetime ago when
she'd first met him in those woods of his, but in fact it had only been
little more than two and a half years.
Now they were a long way from Richard's simple boyhood home or Kahlan's
grand childhood haunts. Had they a choice, they would choose to be in either
place, or just about anywhere else, other than where they were. But at least
they were together.
After all she and Richard had been through--the dangers, the
anguish,the heartache of losing friends and loved ones--Kahlan jealously
savored every moment with him, even if it was in the heart of enemy