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

Journeyman mage by his clothing.
Skan remained absolutely motionless, except for the very end of his tail, which flopped and twitched
like a fish on land. Like a cat, the end of his tail betrayed his mental state.
Well, every other gryphon in the audience was watching her closely, too; gryphons were by nature
impressed with any kind of fancy flying. It was part of courtship and mating, after all. But none of the
others had quite the same rapt intensity in their gaze as Skan did.
In point of fact, he looked as much stunned as enraptured, rather as if he'd been hit in the back of
the head with a club.
Amberdrake smothered a chuckle when he realized that Skan's eyes had glazed over. Poor Black
Gryphon! He was used to impressing, not being impressed!
Zhaneel neatly dodged a set of ambushes; crossbow bolts, dropping nets, and an illusion of fighters.
"She's good, isn't she," he said, feeling incredibly proud of her. She wasn't just good, she was smooth.
She integrated her movements, flowing from flight to ground and back again seamlessly.
"She's beautiful," Skan rumbled absently. "Just—beautiful...."
His beak gaped a little, and Amberdrake had to choke back another laugh. So the great Black
Gryphon was a little bit more than simply impressed, was he? Well, fancy flying was the gryphon
equivalent of erotic dance.
"Skan," he muttered under his breath, "you're going to embarrass both of us. That tongue looks
really stupid sticking out of the corner of your beak."

Skandranon hadn't realized that he was making his interest in Zhaneel quite so obvious.
"Pull it in, Skan," Amberdrake muttered insistently. And annoyingly, but that was the privilege of an
old friend. Better him than anyone else, though. There were plenty of other folk who enjoyed a chance to
get a jab in; why give them more fuel for their fires?
More to the point, such teasing might be turned against Zhaneel, and he already knew that her fragile
self-esteem would not survive it. He wasn't even certain she'd recognize teasing if she encountered it.
One of the Second Wing West gryphons, a female named Lyosha, sidled up beside him, and
preened his neck-ruff briefly. It was a common enough sort of greeting between gryphons, one which
could lead to further intimacies or simply be accepted as a greeting and nothing more. He and Lyosha
had flown spirals together before, and she was obviously hoping the greeting would lead to the former,
but he was not interested this time. Not with Zhaneel dancing her pattern "with danger" before his eyes.
"Lyosha," he said simply, acknowledging her presence in a friendly manner, but offering nothing
more. "This is fascinating."
Lyosha gave his feathers one last nibble, then subsided with a sigh. "True enough," she replied with
resignation. "I'm tempted to start running this course myself. It's enough to set a gryphon's tail afire!"
He ignored the hint and coughed politely. "Well," he said, his eyes never leaving Zhaneel, "if she's not
careful, the tail that's afire may be hers."
And let Lyosha make of that what she will....
Zhaneel slunk over a decaying tree trunk toward four upright sacks of hay. The sacks had been
clustered around a burning campfire and wore discarded uniforms. A sign next to them read, "Off duty.
Talking. Eating." Next to them was a midsized tent and pickets for four horses, but no horses were there.
Tent is big enough to hold ten. Four here, four horses gone, may mean eight. Four still out or
on mission. Ma'ar's squads are eight and one officer, but officers get separate tents. Where is the
officer, then, and the others?
Zhaneel drew her hand-crossbow. A tug with her beak, and it was cocked for a bolt to be laid in
the track. She pulled one from her harness and laid it in, ready to fire.
Use the cover you have available. Steady with solid object.
She lowered herself behind the trunk, braced the hand-crossbow on the crumbling bark—and fired.
The shaft hit the sack on the far left, and she hastily drew a second bolt while reading the weapon with
her beak. The second shot hit the next sack dead center and pitched it forward into the fire. She then