"Charles Ingrid - The Sand Wars 06 - Challenge Met" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingrid Charles)

wooden cross rested in his palm. Amber sucked in her breath, recognizing it
as one of St. Colin's. Jack looked out, searching for Denaro and no longer
able to see him. He raised his hand in the air.

"I hear you, Denaro!"

The memory now chilled Amber. How close Denaro had come to inciting
out-and-out riot. Pepys feared the Walkers. If not for their pressure, she and
Jack would be dead now, but the emperor had a desperate need for them.
Yet she knew the cloth Pepys and his minister had been cut from. Once Jack
accomplished the impossible, if he could accomplish the impossible, the two
of them would be discarded.

The hospital wing was deserted, a seldom used area of the palace,
maintained only to preserve the health of the emperor. She paused at the
clinic doorway, knowing she could jimmy the palm lock if she had to, but
also knowing that the prisoner within was honor bound to stay imprisoned
and that he had made her vow as well. That she thought him a fool made no
difference in how much she loved and worried about him.

A noise in the hallway brought her up short. She thought she heard a
scrabble, a clacking of carapaces against the obsidite flooring—and even as
the hairs on the back of her neck prickled, the noise faded. When a man
rounded the juncture and approached her, a tall, homely man with pasty
skin, lank brown hair, and lips too thick to smile appealingly, she spat at
him.

"No Thraks! You promised no Thraks on the guard duty."

Vandover Baadluster gave an ironic bow. "And good afternoon to you as
well, Milady Amber. What need do the emperor and I have of guards with
you on duty?"

She could feel the color blaze in her cheeks as she answered, "I won't
have the bugs within eyeshot or earshot of me and Jack. May I congratulate
you on your handling of our allies. We couldn't be more rife with them. You
have rolled over, belly up, and surrendered."

"Harsh words from a beautiful whore," Vandover said mildly, but there
was nothing mild about the flint dark eyes that blazed out of his pale face.
"If you wish to worry about alien contact, I suggest you worry about the
Ash-Farel. The Thraks, at least, we have met face-to-face and can bargain
with. The Ash-Farel are like a black hole, swallowing worlds and colonies
never to be seen again."

She said nothing in answer to that, but turned away, her short cape
billowing with the disdain she felt. She could feel her heart hammering in
her chest, but the man did not bait her further.

Instead, he seemed to be examining the windowless door as if he could