"Mercedes Lackey - Dragon Jousters 4 - Aerie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

minds of their own, and some of them were minded to find places to live other than the temple. This
despite the fact that they were literally worshipped and adored at the temple, and had their pick of the
daintiest portions of the kills and sacrifices that went to feed the dragons.

So they were likely to be found not only in the temple, but outside of it. Some of them didn't seem to
realize they were supposed to be in the temple at all—One of them being themau -cat that kept trying to
derive nourishment from Kiron's earlobes.
He sighed, now wide awake despite the fact that it was so pitch-dark he wouldn't be able to see the cat,
or know where it was until it—

He refrained from leaping to his feet and screaming when it dashed across the length of his body and
used his shoulder for a launch point into a tremendous jump.

He heard it land, heard a brief scuffle and a squeak, and then heard the wet sound of a cat dining on a
fat desert rat.

Neither Avatre nor any of the other dragons bothered the cats, or bothered about them either, much to
Kiron's relief He wasn't sure how he would explain to the priests that one of their avatars had gone down
the gullet of a dragon. Fortunately, dragons were too slippery for cats to want to sleep on, and most of
them preferred warm human and blankets to warm sand of the wallows.

The wet sounds in the darkness ceased. And a moment later, the nameless cat strolled up Kiron's legs to
his hip, and stood there, attempting to knead it into a soft bed. Its claws were very sharp and long, and
he gritted his teeth as they stung him even through the thick wool of his blanket, reminding himself over
and over that one mustnot strike the avatar of the Goddess Pashet…

He knew better than to roll over to try to dislodge it. Doing that in the past had resulted in the cat sinking
its claws into his hip in an effort to keep its balance.

Finally, the cat gave up hip kneading as a lost cause and strolled down his legs again. Presumably, now
that it was full, and he had, once again, proved to be a less-than-satisfactory sleeping partner, it would
pad down the stairs to Avatre's magic-warmed sands and curl up on a ledge at a respectful distance from
the dragon. After all, she might not intentionally harm it, but dragons did occasionally heave themselves
up out of their sands and roll over. They also were known to lash their tails in their sleep, or flail their
wings. Kiron, on the other hand, was not a satisfactory place to sleep. He was too bony, and he moved
too much, and he would not allow the cat the two thirds of his pallet that it wanted. Clearly, he was being
ungenerous to the avatar of the goddess.

Maybe that was why he couldn't get Aket-ten to stay here. Pashet was the goddess of love as well as
cats, cats being well known for their amorous nature. Maybe he had offended Pashet herself.

That… could be bad. He made a mental note to find something to make the cat a warm bed with down
on that ledge. And find another way to keep it from sucking his earlobe. And make an appropriate
sacrifice at Pashet's Temple in the morning.

Aket-ten was one of a handful of Jousters who were staying in Sanctuary to run courier to the new city
the Great King and Queen were building on Great Mother River between Tia and Alta. He could hardly
blame her for wanting to stay there instead of here. Her family was there, or at least, her mother and
father were; most of her brothers had gone back to Alta to take care of the family estates and help
resettle the refugees of the city. The only one of her brothers who had stayed was Orest, who was one of