"Elizabeth Haydon - Rhapsody 3 - Destiny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haydon Elizabeth)

'What's upsetting Grunthor now?" she asked, handing the midwife a sack of roots. Krinsel sniffed it,
then shook her head, and Rhapsody set the sack down again.

'He's apparently displeased with the quartermaster and his regiment," Achmed answered as a stream
of Bolgish profanities rumbled over the heath.

'I think he's more perturbed that he can't go with us," Rhapsody said, looking through the gray light of
foredawn with sympathy at the terrified soldiers and their leader, who were doing their best to stand at
attention, withering under the Sergeant-Major's violent dressing-down. The midwife handed her a pouch,
and she smiled.

'Undoubtedly, but it can't be helped." Achmed cinched a leather sack and wedged it into his
saddlebag. "The Bolglands are not in any state to be left without a leader at the moment. Do you have
everything you need for the delivery?"

The Singer's smile vanished. "Thank you, Krinsel. Be well while I'm away, and look in on my
grandchildren for me, will you?" The Bolg woman nodded, bowed perfunctorily to the king, and then
made a cautious exit, disappearing into one of the Cauldron's many exit tunnels.

'I have no idea what I'm going to need for this delivery," she said in a low voice with a terse edge to it.
"I've never delivered a child who is demon-spawn before. Have you?"

Achmed's dark, mismatched eyes stared at her for a moment above the veil, then looked away as he
went back to his packing.

Rhapsody brushed back a strand of her golden hair, exhaled, and rested a hand gently on the Bolg
king's forearm. "I'm sorry for being churlish. I'm nervous about this journey."

Achmed hoisted the snow-encrusted saddlebag over his shoulder. "I now," he said evenly. "You
should be. We are still agreed about these children, I take it? You understand the conditions under which
my help is given?"

Rhapsody returned his piercing stare with one that was milder but every bit as determined. "Yes."

Good. Then let's go rescue the quartermaster from Grunthor's wrath."

-

The newly fallen snow of winter's earliest days crunched below their feet as they tramped over the
dark heath. Rhapsody paused for a moment, turning away from the western foothills and the wide
Krevensfield Plain to the black eastern horizon beyond the peaks of the Teeth, lightening now at its
jagged rim with the paler gray that preceded daybreak.

An hour, maybe less, before sunrise, she thought, trying to gauge when she and Achmed would be
departing. It was important to be in a place where she could greet the dawn with the ritual songs that
were the morning prayers of the Liringlas, her mother's race. She inhaled the clear, cold air, and watched
as it passed back out with her exhalation, frozen clouds in the bitter wind.
 'Achmed," she called to the king, twenty or more paces ahead of her. He turned around and waited
silently as she caught up with him. "I am grateful for your help in this matter; I really am."