"Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 3 - Dark Hand of Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

arroyo. Dreams of pain and urgency-of the smothering heat of the King of
Wenshar's dungeons and the scorch of cherry-red iron inches from her flesh, of
splattered blood crawling thickly down the walls of a stone room-all flicked
away with the split-second wakefulness of a warrior's training, and Starhawk
struck straight up and silent at the man leaning over her, thumbs going for
his eyes, knowing this would be her only chance.
There was a yell, an oath, and strong hands grabbed her arms from behind. She
was dropping her weight and twisting like a cat at this new assailant-she'd
already known by the first man's speaking that there were more than one-when
her vision cleared.
She relaxed, then jerked disgustedly free of the suddenly slacked grip.
"If I knew you'd be in hell when I got here, Dogbreath, I'd have tried to be a
better person." She scratched the sand out of her hair, and took the waterskin
he offered her. The tepid fluid was ambrosia to her dry mouth.
The man who'd first grabbed her, accepting back the vessel and slinging it
around his shoulder again, responded gravely, "I always told you you should
have given more money to the Church." Then he grinned, bright black, beady
eyes sparkling in a tanned face between long, inky hair braided with ribbons,
and they embraced, Dogbreath of Mallincore thumping her happily on the back
while the others-dim shapes against a luminous channel of twilight sky-grouped
in around them.
"Believe me, I'll try it, you damn heretic." He'd been her sergeant in Sun
Wolf's mercenary troop when she'd been a squad-leader, later promoted to
squad-leader himself. Hugging the sinewy hardness of his rib cage was like
hugging a tree.
The fair-haired blond youth whose eyes she'd tried to gouge out upon awakening
held out one hand like a beggar. "You can give money to me," he volunteered
hopefully. "I was a choirboy in the Church back home."
"If those are your credentials, she's the wrong sex to be interested in you,"
retorted a stocky little woman named Firecat, getting a general laugh, even
from the members of the group who nominally worshiped the Triple God, and a
stone flung at her by the youth.
"That's okay, Choirboy, you can sing at my dinners anytime," Starhawk
promised, grinning, and the youth drew himself up and made a dignified
retreat. She turned back to Dogbreath, still kneeling in the sand beside her,
and her gray eyes hardened as she took in the lapis depth of the sky behind
his head. "They've got the Chief," she said simply, and in one swift movement
was on her feet and heading for the horses. She barely noticed how sore she
was from her impact with the ground; in any case it didn't matter. With the
shirdar you had to work fast. "Shirdar warriors, six of them ... "
"We saw the blood." Dogbreath strode at her side, the other two behind. "By
the tracks they took him out of here on foot on a lead-line ... "
Starhawk cursed dispassionately.
"It means they can't be going far," Firecat pointed out.
"Of course they're not going far, they're going to kill him the minute they
find an anthill big enough to stake him out on." Starhawk looked around as
another man came up-the Little Thurg, stocky and tough, with a round, open
face and blue eyes, dragging a couple of saddlebags.
"I found these. By the tracks they took the horses."
"Stuff the horses," Starhawk responded. "It's the books in those bags that the