"Kay, Guy Gavriel - Last Light Of The Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

riding towards the open town gate and the plank bridge across the
ditch. Others ran or walked beside them. He heard shouts. Anger,
yes, but also something else: zest, liveliness. The promise of
sport.

"He will soon found," Ofnir said, in what passed here in the
northlands for Asharite.

Ibn Bakir nodded. He watched two men gallop past. One
screamed suddenly as he passed and swung his axe in vicious,
whistling circles over his head, for no evident reason.

"What will they do to him?" he asked, not caring very much. Ofnir
snorted. Spoke quickly in Erling to the others, evidently repeating
the question.

There was a burst of laughter. One of them, in an effusion of good
humour, punched ibn Bakir on the shoulder.

The merchant, regaining his balance, rubbing at his numbed arm,
realized that he'd asked a naive question.

Blood-eagle death, maybe," said Ofnir, flashing yellow teeth in a
wide grin, making a complex two-handed gesture the southern
merchant was abruptly pleased not to understand. "You see? her
you see?"

Firaz ibn Bakir, a long way from home, shook his head.



+



He could blame his father, and curse him, even go to the women at
the compound outside the walls and pay to have them evoke
seithr. The volur might then send a night-spirit to possess his
father, wherever he was. But there was something cowardly about
that, and a warrior could not be a coward and still go to the gods
when he died. Besides which, he had no money.

Riding in darkness before the first moon rose, Bern Thorkellson
thought bitterly about the bonds of family. He could smell his own
fear and laid a hand forward on the horse's neck to gentle it. It was
too black to go quickly on this rough ground near the woods, and
he could not—for obvious reasons—carry a torch.

He was entirely sober, which was useful. A man could die sober as
well as drunken, he supposed, but had a better chance of avoiding