"Dave Duncan - The Seventh Sword - 2 - The Coming Of Wisdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

"He's your mentor?"
"Well, not just at the moment. He released me from my oaths before the battle
... but he says I may swear to him again."
Battle?
"Watch this puddle!" Nnanji let go her hand and put his arm around her, guiding
her by a muddy patch. But he kept his arm there when they were past, and the
light was quite good now. She began to feel alarmed. She was glad of the
protection of her cloak. She had rarely spoken to a Fourth before and certainly
never been hugged by one. He was smiling down at her, being very friendly. Very.
There were few free men close to her age on the estate, only two unmarried. They
all treated her with awed respect, because of her craft, and they had nothing to
talk about anyway, except the crops and the herds. She had forgotten what real
conversation was like. But she had never had a real conversation with a man,
only with other girls, her friends in the temple, years ago. He was speaking to
her as an equal. That was flattery, and she was worried by how good it felt.
Why would the Goddess send such a filthy swordsman? It was not only his face*
Now they had reached the bottom of the gully. Ahead of them lay the River,
stretching away to the eastern horizon, brilliant below the cloud. Color was
returning to the World, The sun god would appear in a few moments. Rain was
still falling, but gently, and she could see water streaking the dirt on the.
swordsman's bony shoulders and chest. Even his kilt...
Quili gasped. "That's blood! You've been hurt?"
"Not mine!" He grinned again, proudly. "Yesterday we had a battle—a great feat
of arms! Shonsu did six and I drained two!"
She shivered, and his arm tightened around her, so she could not break loose.
She pulled her cloak tight. This intimacy was appalling behavior for a
priestess, but that steely grip gave her no choice. Kandoru had never held her
in public this way. He had expected her to walk one pace behind him.
"You... you killed two men?"
"Three, yesterday. Two in the battle, but earlier I had to challenge for my
promotion, and one of them chose swords
DAVE DUNCAN
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instead of foils. He was trying to scare me, so I killed him. I didn't like him
much, anyway."
She began to laugh, and then stared up with growing horror and belief at his
satisfied smirk. Two of the swordmarks on his forehead were swollen, obviously
new. His hair was black and greasy, but there were patches of red showing
through the filth. His eyes were pale, the lashes almost invisible, and the
runnels of clean skin washed by the rain were very light-colored. Apparently
this murderous, callous youth was normally a redhead. The black in his hair had
been applied deliberately, and then it had smeared all over him.
"Please, adept!" She struggled to break loose. They were almost at the jetty.
The banks of the River were sheer cliffs of pebbly sand, and the only level land
was the patch of shingle in the notch cut by the stream. When the River was
high, there was barely room to turn a wagon, but today it was low, the flats
were wide, and the landward end of the pier stood completely out of the water.
A smatt single-masted boat was tied up at the far end. There was no great army
of swordsmen waiting, then, but there might still be a couple of dozen of them.
Suddenly very frightened, Quili squirmed harder.