"Denning,_Troy_-_Return_of_the_Archwizards_2_-_The_Siege_(v1.2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

"I'm sure you won't," Galaeron said, still trying to draw the prince's gaze to the ceiling. "But new mistakes will prove—"
"Rare, I'm sure," Vala said, taking Galaeron's arm.
The prince should have recognized the elf's signal, and they didn't dare push things too far. Once the phaerimm realized they were discovered, they would attack instantly—and there were few mistakes more grave than letting a phaerimm have the first blow.
"If you will excuse us, Prince," Vala said, "it's time we let you return to your work."
Escanor dismissed them with an easy wave. "Of course."
Vala drew Galaeron away, her iron grasp permitting no argument. Once they were a few steps away, with their backs facing the suspicious stalactites, she released his arm and began to twist her hands through the gestures of Evereskan finger talk.
You're never going to get Escanor to look up. As Vala made the statement, she was careful to remain alert to any alien presences in her mind. The phaerimm were not so adept at telepathy that they could eavesdrop on a person's thoughts without revealing their own presence, but it never hurt to be careful—not around these enemies. Are you sure they were phaerimm?
No, Galaeron admitted, but it's better to be sure they aren't. You saw what I was looking at?
Disguised as stalactites, Vala said. Her tempo was slow and awkward, for it was a complicated language and she

had only taken up its study as a way to pass the time while Galaeron lay immobile with a pair of broken ankles. Dry tips and a dark line where they're pressing their bases to the ceiling.
Galaeron raised his brow. I missed the lines, he said. We can't run the risk of alerting them. We have to take them ourselves.
Ourselves? Vala shook a fist downward to show emphasis. How?
You take the closest one, Galaeron instructed. Throw your sword. I'll blast the other with a shadow bolt.
Vala's fingers turned slow and clumsy. / thought you were done casting spells.
You have another way? Galaeron's gestures came so fast and sharp Vala could barely follow his meaning. Maybe you can convince Escanor he's wrong—without alerting the phaerimm?
The question required no answer. Vala knew as well as Galaeron that the prince could not be persuaded that he had made a mistake. They had no choice except to launch the attack on their own, and that meant Galaeron would have to use shadow magic to have any effect at all on the phaerimm, and using his shadow magic meant giving a little more of himself over to the darkness that was slowly devouring him from within.
Resigning herself to the heartache of watching the Galaeron she knew slip even deeper into shadows, Vala gave a curt nod, then asked, What about the third one?
You're joking, Galaeron replied.
/ could be wrong, but I'm not joking. One above Escanor, one over the mineral pads—
That one I missed. Galaeron's fingers fell motionless for a moment, then he said, /'// have to try a shadow door.
Bad idea, Vala said, even more concerned. Shadow magic was far more dangerous for the wielder than

normal Weave magic. If a magic-user overreached his limits, he invited in just the sort of darkness already consuming Galaeron. You're barely holding on as it is.
Then it's good you are watching over me. I am grateful—very grateful.
Vala looked away, then spoke aloud. "Galaeron, it isn't fair to hold me to that promise ... not now."
"Nevertheless, I do hold you to it." Galaeron's voice was firm. "When the time comes, you must not hesitate."
"If, Galaeron." They reached the shore, and Vala sat down to remove her greaves. "If the time comes."
Galaeron turned away without answering and started down the shore, moving far enough away that they both could not be struck down by the same spell. Vala looked back across the lake to where the shadow lords were just closing the last few breaches in the shadow curtain. Though the shadow lords had left their armor on shore, all were armed with glassy black weapons similar to Vala's darksword—one reason, no doubt, that the enemy was being so careful to remain concealed.
The two phaerimm Galaeron had noticed hung about fifty feet apart in a rough line on the interior side of the curtain. On the flanks of their conical bodies, Vala could see a regular pattern of bumps where their body thorns lay concealed beneath the hardened lime-mud they had used to disguise their scaly hides. The third phaerimm, the one Galaeron had missed, hung over the mineral pads about forty paces away, barely noticeable in the gloomy boundary between dark and light. Though Vala had no way of guessing whether the creatures had seen enough to defeat the shadow curtain, the simple fact that they were making no attempt to stop the final Splicing made clear what they believed.
Finding no signs of any enemies beyond the three already located, Vala stood and waded back into the lake,

angling toward Prince Escanor to avoid alerting the phaerimm. She had no idea how Galaeron had sensed the enemy's presence—or why that had brought on a Change—but she felt confident in his conclusions. Every good warrior knew the value of camouflage, and the thornbacks were nothing if not good warriors.
When Vala drew within throwing range of the nearest phaerimm, she stopped and looked back. Galaeron was just setting a loop of shadowsilk on a stone beside him. He peeled another strand off the mat of dull fabric he was holding, then soaked it in a drop of armor oil and glanced in Vala's direction. She nodded. He pressed the filament to the limestone wall, his lips already moving as he spoke his spell incantation.
A film of oily shadow spread across the ceiling, filling the cavern with a soft, rainlike patter as thousands of drops of water lost their tenuous hold and plummeted into the lake. Vala drew her darksword and in a single smooth motion sent it whirling up at the nearest phaerimm. The glassy black blade tore a three-foot gash across the thornback's body and became lodged with little more than the hilt showing.
The stain on the ceiling swept past overhead. The astonished phaerimm came loose one after the other, the hardened lime-mud camouflage falling in cakes from their squirming bodies and their strange language of winds stirring the air into whistling vortexes. The phaerimm hit the water almost as one and sank beneath the surface.
Escanor and his shadow lords stopped working and whirled toward the splash rings, shouting to each other in their own language and trying to make sense of what was happening.
"Phaerimm!" Vala stretched her hand toward the one she had attacked and thought of her darksword, and the

blade rose out of the water and flew back into her grasp. "Three of them!"
She heard Galaeron intoning his second spell and looked over to see him flipping the ring of shadowsilk toward the place the third phaerimm had entered the water. A disk of black shadow appeared two inches above the surface. Vala was distracted as the startled phaerimm activated their floating magic and began rising out of the water. The two nearest the curtain came up in the midst of the astonished shadow lords, who quickly proved the truth of Escanor’s boasts by assailing them with shadow webs and darkswords.
Even caught off guard, the phaerimm reacted like the terrors they were, unleashing a flurry of fire strikes and lightning bolts that left a dozen Shadovar bobbing dead in the darkening waters. A pair of scorched shadow lords popped up beside Vala, their arms and legs blasted off by the force of the strike that had killed them. Vala threw her sword again, only to see her target scythed down the middle by a falling wall of black glass as Escanor unleashed his own magic.
Vala glanced over to see the third phaerimm's tail vanishing into the circle of shadow Galaeron had placed over its splash ring. The elf himself was pointing across the lake roughly in her direction. Knowing the creature would be disoriented for a moment when it emerged from Galaeron's shadow door, Vala nodded and reached out to summon her sword back.
Galaeron's finger shifted in Prince Escanor's direction.
"No, Galaeron!" Vala cried. "Here!"
Too late. The third phaerimm had already reappeared, stunned and disoriented by its dizzying journey through the shadow plane. But Escanor happened to be turning to attack their other surviving foe, and so this thornback

appeared behind him instead of in front. Vala's stomach turned to ice. With the prince at least twenty paces away and in a direct line beyond the dazed phaerimm, she did not dare throw her sword again.
She started toward him, yelling, "Escanor, behind you!"
The prince cocked his head in response but only stretched a hand toward the second phaerimm, who was assailing five of his lords with a roaring storm of meteors. A sphere of spinning darkness shot from his hand and streaked through the thing's torso, leaving a basket-sized hole in the heart of its body. The creature splashed into the lake and slowly sank out of sight.