"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 01 - The Black Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

possessed, "You can do this, Zhaneel. I know you can. I believe in you."
Her eyes grew bright, and her ear-tufts perked completely up. "I could—I could entrrrap the
makaar." She paused as he shook his head slightly. "Perhaps if I made of myself a target, outflew them to
ambush?" Again he shook his head. Both her ideas were far too impulsive—and suicidal.
"It will have to be something that only you can do, Zhaneel," he suggested. "You don't have to make
a hero of yourself every day. You don't have to have an immediate result, either. But whatever you do
must be something only you can do—just as the way you killed those three makaar was done in a way
only you could have performed. Perhaps something that Urtho or Skan said to you could help you think
of something...."
She sat, deep in thought, while Amberdrake got himself a second cup of tea. Finally she spoke.
"Urrtho asked me what training I had, and he was disappointed that no one had given me any
special attentions." She looked up at him intently, and he gave her an encouraging nod. "Skandranon also
seemed surprised that I had no special training. And if I cannot fly and fight as the others
do—perhaps—perhaps I should train myself?" Again she looked to him, and he nodded enthusiastically.
"Perhaps I should ask for—for courses, such as they put the young humans across, only for flying."
"That is a good plan, sky-lady," he told her firmly. "It is one that will benefit not only you, but others
who are also small and light. And as you become skilled, you will definitely attract Skan's attention."
But now she had turned her attention to his hands, and then to her own foreclaws.
"Amberdrrrake, I have hands, like humans—I can do human things, can I not?" She flexed her
hands, first one, then the other, as if testing their mobility. "Perhaps I can use a weapon—or—perhaps I
can fly to help wounded!" Her beak parted in excitement, and Amberdrake had to work to suppress his
own excitement. The idea of a gryphon-Healer, even the kind of field-Healer who could only splint bones
and bandage wounds—that was enough to make him want to jump up and put the plan into motion
immediately. How many fighters had bled their lives out simply because no one could reach them? The
mobility of a gryphon would save so many of those otherwise lost lives.
"This is going to take time, Zhaneel," he cautioned, repeating the words to himself as well as her. "All
of it is going to take time to learn, more time to practice. But it is a wonderful idea. I will help you all I
can, I swear it!"
Zhaneel listened to his cautions, then bobbed her head gravely. "One weapon," she declared. "I
ssshall learn one weapon. Crosssbow; it ssseems easy enough to massster. And I shall learn the simple
healing that the green-bands know."
By "green-bands," she meant the squires and sergeants who wore a green armband and acted as
rough field-Healers, who knew the basics. Enough to patch someone up long enough for them to get to a
real Healer.
Enough to save lives.
"And I would be honored to teach you that Healing, my sky-lady," Amberdrake said softly.
"And—" she dropped her voice to a shy whisper. "And Skandranon will notice me?"
Amberdrake chuckled. "Oh, yes, my lady. He won't be able to help himself. You will be one of the
few things that he does notice, I think."
She cocked her head to one side. "Few things?" she asked curiously.
He shook his head, and shrugged. "Oh, sometimes I think he is so obsessed with topping his last
escapade that he does not notice much of anything, including his friends."
She continued to stare at him quizzically and finally said, "He notices. He loves you. The whole camp
knows this."
That was not what he had expected to hear, and for once, he was taken by surprise. "He—what?"
Amberdrake replied. He thought for a moment that he had misheard her, but she repeated her statement.
"He loves you as if you were a nestmate," she insisted. "Perhaps he does not say so, but all the camp
knows that Amberdrake and Skandranon might as well have come from a single mother."
As his mouth dropped open a little, she gurgled—a gryphon-giggle, and the first sound of happiness
he had heard from her yet. "I heard this—I heard him tell some of the captains that you were a being of