"Mercedes Lackey - Vows and Honor 2 - Oathbreaker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Kethry, only just now waking from a light doze, refrained from replying; she just waited until
Tarma got the tent closed up again. Then she spoke three guttural words, activating the spell
she’d set there before drowsing off—and a warm yellow glow raced around the tent walls,
meeting and spreading up-ward until the canvas was bathed in mellow light and the temperature
within suddenly rose to that of a balmy spring day. Tarma sighed and sagged a little.
“Let me take that,” Kethry said then, unwinding herself from the thick wool blankets of her
bedroll, rising, and pulling the woolen coat, stiff with ice, from Tarma’s angular shoulders. “Get
out of those soaked clothes.”
The Swordswornan shook water out of her short-cropped black hair, and only just prevented
Warrl from trying the same maneuver.
“Don’t you dare, you flea-bitten curl Gods above and below, you’ll soak every damned thing in
the tent!”
Warrl hung his head and looked sheepish, and waited for his mindmate to throw an old thread-
bare horse blanket over him. Tarma enveloped him in it, head to tail, held it in place while he
shook himself, then used it to towel off his coarse gray-black fur.
“Glad to see you, Greeneyes,” Tarma continued, stripping herself down to the skin, occasionally
wincing as she moved. She rummaged in her pack, finding new underclothing, and finally pulling
on dry breeches, thick leggings and shirt of a dark brown lambswool. “I thought you’d still be
with your crew—”
Kethry gave an involuntary shudder of sympathy at the sight of her partner’s nearly-emaciated
frame. Tarma was always thin, but as this campaign had stretched on and on, she’d become
nothing but whipcord over bone. She hadn’t an ounce of flesh to spare; no wonder she
complained of being cold so much! And the scars lacing her golden skin only gave a faint
indication of the places where she’d taken deeper damage—places that would ache de-monically
in foul weather. Kethry gave her spell another little mental nudge, sending the tempera-ture of the
tent a notch upward.
I should have been doing this on a regular basis, she told herself guiltily. Well—that’s soon
mewled.
“—so there’s not much more I can do.” The sweet-faced sorceress gathered strands of hair like
sun-touched amber into both hands, twisting her curly mane into a knot at the back of her neck.
The light from the shaded lantern which hung on the tent’s crossbar, augmented by the light of
the shielding spell, was strong enough that Tarma noted the dark circles under her cloudy green
eyes. “Tresti is ac-complishing more than I can at this point. You know my magic isn’t really the
Healing kind, and on top of that, right now we have more wounded men than women.”
“And Need’ll do a man about as much good as a stick of wood.”
Kethry glanced at the plain shortsword slung on the tent’s centerpole, and nodded. “To tell you
the truth, lately she won’t heal anybody but you or me of anything but major wounds, so she isn’t
really useful at all at this point. I wonder sometimes if maybe she’s saving herself— Anyway, the
last badly injured woman was your scout Mala this morning.”
“We got her to you in time? Gods be thanked!” Tarma felt the harpwire-taut muscles of her
shoulders go lax with relief. Mala had intercepted an arrow when the scouts had been surprised
by an enemy ambush; Tarma had felt personally responsible, since she’d sent Warrl off in the
opposite direction only moments before. The scout had been barely con-scious by the time they’d
pounded up to the Sunhawk camp.
“Only just; an arrow in the gut is not something even for a Master-Healer to trifle with, and all
we have is a Journeyman.”
“Teach me to steal eggs, why don’t you? Tell me something I don’t know,” Tarma snapped, ice-
blue eyes narrowed in irritation, harsh voice and craggy-featured scowl making her look more
like a hawk than ever.
Oops. A little too near the hone, I think.