"David Drake - Crown of the Isles 02 - The Mirror of Worlds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

men had hunted dangerous game together for a decade, so they were naturally cautious. That was good,
though the great scaly herbivores they'd hunted on Ornifal in their own day weren't nearly as deadly as
the Coerli they preyed on at Ilna's direction.
The valley'd been planted in barley or oats—the shoots were too young for Ilna to be sure; ancient olives
budded in gnarled majesty among the furrows. Ilna gave a tight smile: the trees appeared to be randomly
spaced, but they formed a pattern so subtle that she would've said no one but herself or her brother
Cashel could see it.
Almost no one, perhaps. Ilna didn't like pride, in herself least of all, and she especially disliked learning
that she'd arrogantly assumed she was uniquely skilled. She smiled a little wider: since she disliked
herself at most times, having a particular cause didn't make a great deal of difference.
A goat bleated on the far side of the valley. There was a sizable herd, cropping the grass growing among
the rocks on that slope. No one had kept goats in the borough around Barca's Hamlet where Ilna grew

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up. Goats were hard on pastures, though Ilna'd been told they gave better milk than sheep. Sheep's milk
and brick-hard whey cheese had been good enough for Ilna and her brother when they were growing up
as orphans; good enough when they could afford them, that was.
"They aren't straying into the crops," she remarked, her eyes narrowing as she watched the herd. The
goats were aware of her and Karpos, but they didn't appear skittish or even much interested. "Though
there's nobody watching them."
The hunter shrugged. "All dead, I reckon," he said. "There's no fires burning and nothing to hear but the
birds. And the goats, I mean. Do we have goat meat tonight, mistress?"
"I'll tell you when I decide," Ilna said curtly. The hunters didn't appreciate how well trained the goats
must be that they didn't stray into the crops.
There'd been a time when Ilna took certain things for granted. Oh, not in her speech the way most people
did, but still in the back of her mind: the sun would rise, the wind would blow, and Chalcus and Merota
would go through life with her.
So far the sun continued to rise and the wind to blow, but those might change in a heartbeat; and if they
did, that would matter less to Ilna than the loss of her family had. Still, for now there were Coerli to kill.
Three bodies lay just ahead, two middle-aged human males and a catman. They'd been hacked savagely
by swords or axes: one man had been disemboweled and the Corl's head clung to his shoulders by a
scrap of skin—its spine was cut through. No weapons were in evidence, but the catman's muzzle was
bloody.
"We don't have to worry about what's behind us, now," Karpos said. "Hold up before we check on what
might be waiting inside, right?"
Without taking his eyes off the temple and sprawled bodies, the hunter raised his right arm and waved to
his partner. Before returning his fingertips to the nocked arrow, Karpos wiggled his long dagger in its
sheath to make sure it was free.
Ilna didn't think they needed to wait for Asion, but she didn't argue the point. If it'd mattered, she'd have
done as she pleased—and seen to it that the hunters did as she pleased also. She didn't need to prove her
power; that was for weak people.
She considered for a moment, then put the hank of yarn back in the sleeve of her outer tunic. She'd
woven the cloth herself, and she'd also woven her cloak of unbleached wool that shed water like a slate
roof.
Karpos and his partner wore breeches and vests of untanned deerskin with the flesh side turned out. The
packs that they'd left back on the ridgeline included fur robes for cold weather, though the season had
advanced so that they were no longer necessary even at night.