"Sara Douglass - Redemption 3 - Crusader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

wasted. Our love is destined!"
And then she lifted her head, and glanced at the sky. The laughter died from her face, and she got to
her feet, slipping very slightly on the ice, and turned towards the tunnel entrance. WolfStar had
escaped for the moment, but StarLaughter knew that Fate would ensure their paths crossed again.
After all, weren't they meant to enjoy a destiny together?
An instant's hesitation, then StarLaughter ran inside the tunnel, wondering if, at the least,
she might find a cloak left over from the Icarii's residency.

The Hawkchilds soared in a great black cloud in the thermals that rose from the central plain of the
wasteland. They had been set to the hunt, and they revelled in it.
Save ... save for the object of the hunt. Like StarLaughter had once done, the Hawkchilds had given
their allegiance to the Questors in return for power and an entry back into the world they'd been tipped
from.
Like StarLaughter had once been driven, the Hawkchilds Were driven by one necessity:
revenge on WolfStar. If the Questors — the Demons — gave them power, well and good. The
Hawkchilds were grateful and they would do the Demons' bidding.
So long as their bidding did not interfere with the great quest for revenge, and so long as they were
not required to hunt one of their own.
And the Hawkchilds still regarded StarLaughter as one of their own: they had not learnt of the shift in
her priorities, or of the deeper madnesses that had claimed her mind.
Nevertheless, they did as Qeteb ordered and rose on the thermals before separating in a dozen
different directions. They would find StarLaughter, but for their own purposes, not Qeteb's.

StarLaughter walked through the corridors of the deep underground interior of Talon Spike.
Some sections of the corridors had crumbled when the top of the mountain had exploded, and the rubble
forced StarLaughter to sometimes scramble over it, and sometimes detour through alternative hallways.
This was not the Talon Spike she remembered.
In her time the Icarii had used Talon Spike mainly as a summer retreat, a pleasure palace.
Consequently, the very fabric of the mountain had been consecrated to the pursuits of pleasure: seduction
nests, silken spaces for sleeping, great soaring halls for singing and flight dances. Even the walls had been
steeped in music and laughter.
Now all was grey and silent. StarLaughter realised that this was largely due to the cessation of the
Star Dance — the Icarii had breathed life into the mountain almost exclusively through the enchantments
they'd woven from the Star Dance — but she could also see that Talon Spike had been put to a more
sober purpose over past times.
She passed chambers that were more ascetic than luxurious — and what Icarii ever enjoyed
asceticism? She walked into some of the lower halls that were filled with stacks of books and
parchments, rather than silken banners and musical instruments. She glanced through sleeping chambers
that had beds designed for one (for one!) rather than two.
StarLaughter paused in the doorway of one chamber and shuddered. It looked almost as if ... as if
the mountain had been used as a centre of learning and study rather than pleasure!
"Well, at least Qeteb did nothing but good here when he destroyed," she muttered, continuing on
down the corridor. "Learning! What had come over the Icarii!"
 Despite the depressing degree of soberness and asceticism, StarLaughter finally found what she'd
been looking for in a chamber only two levels above the basement: a chest of silken wraps. She sighed
with pleasure as she lifted out a scarlet robe
edged with beaten gold, and she hastily shed her tattered and bloodstained blue robe and put on the
scarlet one.
StarLaughter wasn't sure how her blue robe had got so befouled, nor why she'd allowed
herself to continue wearing it for so long.