"Janrae Frank - Dark Brothers of the Light 06 - Blood Arcane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frank Janrae)

She is pretty, but she is fell,

Anksha, Bloody Anksha stalks the night

If underneath the moonlight bright

You should glimpse her in the night,

Flee before she nears you, mon

You have not strength to fight her,

And no magic will affright her,

Anksha, Bloody Anksha stalks the night

-Lycan traditional teaching song


chapter one
children of the damned

Stygean stood in the training yard of the royal guest mansion, running his finger beneath the heavy iron
collar around his thin twelve-year-old neck. With his other hand he gave a moment's expression to
nervousness by pulling at the tail of his long, curly black hair. Then he forced his hands down to his sides,
squared his shoulders, and tried to look like the son of a soldier that he was. They had broken his father,
but slave or not, they would not break him. Once more his hand stole up to the collar on his neck and his
thumb passed over the inscription: Stygean Loosestrife, property of Anksha.

He slewed his eyes around to glance at the other children from their corners, not wanting to give himself
away. Stygean had wondered how many of the other children had been captured, how many might have
escaped, but he feared that any playmates missing from the group gathered here were dead. He counted
twenty-seven; less than half the children who had been on his father's estate alone.
 An acrid odor laced with something like pork drifted across the yard, making his stomach clench. The
victors were still burning bodies on the north side. His father had always told him that the price of being
discovered as sa'necari was death; their enemies always burned their bodies. They did not want them
rising undead on the third day.

Stygean pulled at his tunic, which was stiff and starched. If he could have refused to put it on, he would
have done so; he would have worn the clothes reduced to dirty rags from two weeks spent in the
dungeons as a way of spitting in his captors? faces. But he had not wanted the beating it would have
earned him. He and the other children were all dressed up to be presented to their owner, Anksha the
Beast.

She arrived with two forest-green clad rangers at either side of her. The Beast was a legend used for
centuries to frighten children. She was no more than three inches taller than Stygean?around four foot and
nine inches tall?and at first glance there was nothing terrifying about her. Yet Stygean sweated beneath
her gaze. He had seen her black hair halo around her head when her power rose, the flashing of her
powerful fangs in the torchlight of the dungeons, and stared at her claws when she unsheathed them in
front of his face as she informed him that she had taken his parents.