"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 2 - Dragon Token" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Maarken shrugged. "If you're determined to do it, then go enjoy yourself. As I say, my authority doesn't include the Isulk'im."

The korrus looked hurt. "Great and noble athri, my heart and sword are yours—second only to the commands of the High Prince himself."

Never, Pol decided, would he get used to people saying that title while looking at him. "No, my lord," he told Kazander. "Until noon, I'm yours to command. I'm going with you."

"Pol!"

"I'm going," he repeated, goaded by the memory of his mother's eyes. They would pay for what they had done to her—and to his daughters as well, for their pain and shock and fear as they and the other Sunrunners were assaulted by iron. He would kill and kill until the canyon flowed with blood, and he would laugh and laugh—

"Don't be a fool!" Maarken rasped.

Pol ignored him. To Kazander, he said, "Tell me what

you plan."

He looked from the High Prince to the Battle Commander in mute distress. Then, with a small, fatalistic sigh, he said, "We will wait for them at the Harps—a wind is rising, and the sound will disguise any noises of our gathering. Visian, yours is the honor of riding with the High Prince."

"Yes, my lord!" The young man—scarcely more than a boy—cast a quick glance at Maarken that said Pol would be protected whether he liked it or not.

"I trust you won't mind if I don't mention this insanity to your wife," Maarken said in acid tones.

The unsubtle reminder irritated Pol. He needed vengeance right now more than anybody else needed to know him safe.

"The High Princess has nothing to fear," Kazander proclaimed.

Pol froze. If it was impossible to associate his own name with "High Prince," still less could he hear "High Princess" and think of Meiglan.

Maarken gave him a look that went right through him. "Enjoy yourself," he invited acidly. But Pol saw the way he flexed his damaged wrist, and knew that despite his protests, Maarken wanted to be in on the action, too.

The Harps was a deep, ragged cave high up the sandstone wall where water trickled through from some buried spring. At its narrow mouth, caught between the moisture and the sun, grew several varieties of cactus and succulents, many of them with long, sharp needles. Almost any breeze was drawn into the cave to swirl in the coolness and emerge through a shaft of collapsed soft stone—and on its way in, rustled the cactus spines until they vibrated like harp strings. The stronger the wind, the louder and wilder the music. And as Pol rode with the Isulk'im to the gully below the Harps, he could hear swift and eerie harmonies punctuated by the slow droning of air escaping the shaft.

Kazander drew rein half a measure from the cavern. His black eyes swept over the thirty-two who rode with him, narrowing on this one or that as if selecting special skills. He made a series of complex gestures with his right hand that sent all but five of his men off to hide where they could amid toppled boulders and standing spires. Before Pol had drawn ten breaths, the twisting little canyon was empty.

His amazement must have shown on his face. Kazander glanced over and grinned, a flash of white teeth below his mustache. "A simple enough trick. I will teach it to you, if you like."

"I'd like," Pol replied. He looked around again, not even hearing the Isulki horses. "Though why you needed the cover of the Harps—"

"There is the occasional carelessness." Kazander shrugged. "Visian, find a place for the High Prince and yourself."

"Wait," Pol said. "Tell me what you want me to do."

"You'll know."

Visian led him past a bend in the gully to a balancing stone, a flat pale slab poised atop a broad-based pillar tapering upward to a point scarcely as wide as a woman's wrist. From this angle, it looked as if a breath would overset the huge rock. But as they climbed up, Pol found that while narrow from back to front, the width of the pillar had been disguised by shadow. There was plenty of room to conceal their horses and themselves behind the wall and beneath the overhang—though he caught himself glancing nervously up at the several hundred silk-weights of rock above his head. He knew very well that the formation was one giant piece of stone, its softer parts worn away until the balancing illusion was perfect. Still. . . .

He touched Visian's sleeve. "I won't be left out of this," he warned, whispering even though the Harps had responded to a shift in the wind and sound wailed through the canyon.

The young man looked shocked. "My lord korrus bade me ride with the High Prince—not wet-nurse him."