"Dave Duncan - Tales of King's Blades 5 - The Jaguar Knights" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

So Wolf moved. Heads turned as he streaked along the endless mar-ble floors of Nocare, skidding
around corners. He paused at the guard-room door long enough to shout, “Modred, pick me out a
horse!” and resumed running. He reached his quarters, dressed in two of everything topped off with a
heavy fur robe, and was down at the Guard’s stable with a pack on his shoulder before the groom had
finished saddling up under Sir Modred’s needle eye.The yard outside was heaped with dirty snow, and
the horses’ breath was icing up their stalls.

The haste was unseemly but necessary if he were to leave before In-quisitor Hogwood appeared, which
is what Vicious had meant. Nobody liked the way inquisitors spied, lied, and pried, but the mutual dislike
be-tween the snoops and the Blades ran especially deep, and Vicious mor-bidly detested them. Wolf,
moreover, was the Dark Chamber’s least favorite Blade.

Modred had chosen well, a powerful bay Wolf knew of old, which seemed to know him also, snorting
puffs of steam at him and stamping a roughshod hoof on the flags. Young Florian arrived, panting, with a
weighty purse from Vicious.A few moments later a mousy clerk minced

10



THE J A GU AR KNIGHTS

P

carefully across the yard to hand Wolf his warrant, signed and sealed. He read it through carefully,
disentangling complex prose to establish that he was granted authority to go anywhere, requisition
anything, ques-tion, detain, or conscript anyone, even suspend civil liberties. It was an astonishing
delegation of power, but then he was the government’s first response to an act of war, either foreign or
civil. Answering Modred’s frustrated glare with a smile of thanks, he swung into the saddle and ad-justed
his sword.

As he rode across the yard, another horse emerged from an adjacent stable and moved alongside, its
hooves making muffled thuds instead of the usual clatter. The rider was well wrapped in black fur, with
little more than his eyes visible inside the hood of his cloak, but their glassy stare told Wolf his assistant
had arrived.

The snoop said, “Trying to sneak away without me, Sir Wolf ?”

The little of him that was visible suggested he was too young to be much help, even in a fight, but Wolf
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would prefer an incompetent rookie to an older man deliberately blocking him.

“I was tired of waiting for you, Inquisitor Hogwood.”

The boy held out a black glove. “Your commission, please.”