"Tanya Huff - Death Rites" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

"That'll teach them to harbor traitors," her brother agreed in the same almost sarcastic tone.

The carter heard double, even triple meanings, and decided not to ask.

They stopped in the heat of the day, feeding, watering and resting the oxen, then continued in the
relative cool of the evening. Just before dark, the carter looped the reins and swiveled around on the seat.
They were getting close; an army encampment left a distinct signature on the breeze, and she wanted to
let her passengers know they should start thinking about slipping away unseen.

They'd already slipped.

Both assassins and their kit had vanished. They'd even shuffled the indentations of their bodies out of the
bags of grain.

Impressed, in spite of her pique, for the only sounds they'd had to cover their departure had been made
the wagon itself, she'd barely turned back to her oxen when she heard a horse approaching. A moment
after that an Imperial Courier appeared out of the dusk, the single golden starburst on his banner
catching the last light of the setting sun.

"You've got to admire their sense of timing," she muttered, but whether she was speaking of the


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assassins or the courier she wasn't entirely sure.

'The Emperor has taken care of it."

"Sir?"

Marshal Arnon waved the message with its broken Imperial seal under the commander's nose. "First he
keeps me here, and now he has sent his own assassin into the fortress. I am to have my people in position
so that when the gates are opened they can take advantage of the opportunity his Imperial Majesty has
provided."

Commander Zayit frowned. 'There are no assassins in the First Army."

"You think the Emperor can't get assassins if he needs them?"

"No, sir."

"No, sir, indeed," the marshal mocked, throwing the message down onto his map table with enough
force that its passage caused the lamp hanging from the centerpole to swing violently back and forth,
painting dark shadows on the inside walls of the tent.

"When will the gates be opened, sir?" Zayit asked, trying not to think of how much the shadows looked
like raven's wings. The longer the army spent looking at the dried and desiccated bundle Orban had
become, the longer they spent speculating about the birds— three of them now—that came every