"Barbara Hambly - A Night with the Girls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

that. "She's going to be here in about a minute and a half. What do you say?"

Prince Chare and the Mayor of Horran stared at one another in blazing defiance, two pro
and wealthy men who had never had to pay personally for the consequences of their own
actions. Chare opened his mouth to retort, then wrinkled his nose and said, "By the Three, w
is that smell?"

Outside someone let out a yell, and the side of the tent billowed, sagged, and ripped.
Brannis Cornmonger screamed. Battlesow and Starhawk sprang towards the wight-which h
increased in size again-but before they reached it the Prince siezed the iron lampstand besi
his bed-

"NO!" screamed Starhawk.

-and shoved the blazing ring of candles into the things distorted face.
 The wight exploded into flame and kept on coming, reaching out five mismatched arms a
a writhing mass of snake-heads. Starhawk slashed, stepped back, the oily heat beating again
her face. Battlesow caught up the inlaid night-stand next to her and hurled it at the thing,
scattering combs and prayer books in all directions but breaking its first rush to let Starhaw
spring clear. Chare and Cornmonger fell over one another in their scramble for the door, C
wearing the shocked expression of one who believed that fire would discourage almost any
kind of attack and Cornmonger yelling at him "You mammering dolt!" Elia slashed with her
halberd at the burning bones within the whirling fire, then snatched up the Articles of
Compromise a moment before the carved table on which they lay caught fire, and fell back,
still guarding Starhawk, to the tent door.

Moaning and howling, the wight kept coming, trying to claim its stolen teeth. Warriors c
running, half-armed and naked, from their tents, camp slaves rushed to hurl water on the
Prince's burning pavilion, and Starhawk fell back, slashing now with her sword, now with
soaked hanging she'd pulled from the tent wall and soused in a horse-trough, fighting to kee
the wight off her while she made a retreat. Battlesow and Elia followed her example, fendi
off the blazing attacker with pole-weapons and dripping rugs while Butcher, with what
Starhawk thought astonishing foresight, retreated behind her towards the place where they'd
prepared the pyre, clearing her way of tent-ropes, camp debris, cookpots and firewood. Th
wight was a twenty-foot tower of flame, dry bones, and dripping flesh devoured and absorb
leaving only an armature of fire, and the fire strode through the camp's darkness howling an
crying its rage.

This plan better work, thought Starhawk. She had no idea if it would and wanted to knoc
together the heads of Prince and Mayor for getting her into this situation. Where the hell wa
Sun Wolf when you needed him anyway? He was the one who knew about magic, not her.

"We got it!" yelled someone-Dogbreath, she thought-"We got it, Hawk, we'll save you!"

She didn't dare turn her head until the last second, when her mercenary pals Dogbreath a
Penpusher crossed the line of her vision hauling one of the wheeled water-butts from which
they watered the mules. She yelled "Don't… !" too late as they levered the thing over, three
hundred gallons spewing forth over the wight…

… which rose in a heaving column of animate liquid and poured over her in a wave.