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

“Temper,” Kethry cautioned; it had taken years of partnership for them to be able to say the right
thing at the right time to each other, but these days they seldom fouled the relationship.
“Whatever hap-pened, you can’t undo it; you’d tell me that if the case were reversed. And Mala’s
all right, so there’s no permanent harm done.”
“Gah—“ Tarma shook her head again, then continued the shake right down to her bare feet,
loosening all the muscles that had been tensed against cold and anger and frustration. “Sorry. My
nerves have gone all to hell. Finish about Mala so I can tell the others.”
“Nothing much to tell; I had Need unsheathed and in her hands when they brought her inside the
camp. The arrow’s out, the wound’s purified and stitched and half-healed, or better. She’ll be
back dodging arrows—with a little more success, I hope!—in about a week. After that all I could
do that was at all useful was to set up a jesto-vath around the infirmary tent—that’s a shielding
spell like the one I just put on ours. After that I was useless, so I came back here. It was bad
enough out there I figured a jesto-vath on owr tent was worth the energy expense, and I waited
for you to get in before putting it in place so I wouldn’t have to cut it. Can’t have the Scoutmaster
coming down with a fever.” She smiled, and her wide green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Listen
to you, though—two years ago, you wouldn’t have touched a command position, and now you’re
fretting over your scouts exactly the way Idra fusses over the rest of us.”
Tarma chuckled, feeling the tense muscles all over her body relaxing. “You know the saying.”
“Only too well—‘That was then, this is now; the
moment is never the same twice.’ “
“You’re learning. Gods, having a mage as a part-ner is useful.”
Tarma threw herself onto her bedroll, rolling over onto her back and putting her hands behind her
head. She stared at the canvas of the tent roof, bright with yellow mage-light, and basked in the
heat.
“I pity the rest of the Hawks, with nobody to weatherproof their tents, and nothing but an itty-
bitty brazier to keep it warm. Unless they’re twoing, in which case I wish them well.”
“Me too,” Kethry replied with a tired smile, sit-ting crosslegged on her own bedroll to fasten the
knot of hair more securely, “though there’s only a handful really twoing it. I rather suspect even
the ones that aren’t will bundle together for warmth, though, the way we used to when I wasn’t
capable of putting up a jesto-vath.”
“You must be about Master-grade yourself by now, no?”
Tarma cracked her left eye open enough to see Kethry’s face. The question obviously caught the
mage by surprise.
“Uh—“
“Beyond it?”
“Thought so.” Tarma closed her eyes again in sat-isfaction. “This job should do it, then. Through
Idra we’ll have contacts right up into the Royal ranks. If we can’t wangle the property, students
and wherewithal for our schools after this, we’ll never get it.”
“We’d have had it before this if it hadn’t been for that damned minstrel!” Now it was Kethry’s
turn to snap with irritation.
“Must you remind me?” Tarma groaned, burying her face in the crook of her arm. “Leslac,
Leslac, if it weren’t for Bardic immunity I’d have killed you five times over!”
“You’d have had to stand in line,” Kethry countered with grim humor. “I’d have beat you to it.
Bad enough that he sings songs about us, worse that he gets the salient points all backwards,
but—”
“To give us the reputation that we’re shining Warriors of the Light is too damned muck!”
They had discovered some four or five years ago that there was a particular Bard, one Leslac by
name, who was making a specialty of creating ballads about their exploits. That would have been
all to the good, for it was certainly spreading their name and reputation far and wide—except that
he was also leaving the impression that the pair of them were less interested in money than in Just