"Lackey, Mercedes - Valdemar - Vows and Honor 01 - The Oathbound" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

what little snow fell on them was soon melted. The

mare's sense of what was "right" was deeply of-
fended by all this frigid white stuff.

"Kathal, dester'edra," Tarma said to the ears that
pricked forward at the first sound of her harsh
voice. "Gently, windborn-sister. I'm nearly finished
here."

Kessira snorted back at her, and Tarma's usually
solemn expression lightened with an affectionate
smile.

"Li'ha'eer, it is ice-demons that dwell in this place,
and nothing else."

When she figured that she had enough of the
grass cleared off to at least help to satisfy her mare's
hunger, she heaped the rest of her foragings into
the center of the area, topping the heap with a
carefully measured portion of mixed grains and a
little salt. What she'd managed to find was poor
enough, and not at all what her training would
have preferred—some dead seed grasses with the
heads still on them, the tender tips from the
branches of those trees and bushes she recognized
as being nourishing, even some dormant cress and
cattail roots from the stream. It was scarcely enough
to keep the mare from starving, and not anywhere
near enough to provide her with the energy she
needed to carry Tarma on at the pace she and her
partner Kethry had been making up until now.

She loosed little Kessira from her tethering and
picketed her in the middle of the space she'd cleared.
It showed the measure of the mare's hunger that
she tore eagerly into the fodder, poor as it was.
There had been a time when Kessira would have
turned up her nose in disdain at being offered such
inferior provender.

"Ai, we've come on strange times, haven't we,
you and I," Tarma sighed. She tucked a stray lock
of crow-wing-black hair back under her hood, and
put her right arm over Kessira's shoulder, resting
against the warm bulk of her. "Me with no Clan
but one weirdling outlander, you so far from the
Plains and your sibs."