"Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 2 - Vengeance Of Dragons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

andlooked back at the burned ground. “I wish we’d knownearlier that Sabirs were coming. We
could have been preparing. Wecould have had ramparts in place, made some sort of weapons. . .”
He frowned and shrugged. “Well, thatcan’t be helped.” He licked his lips. “Youdon’t know
exactly which Sabirs are following you, doyou?” he asked. He put the question to her casually
enough,but Kait heard the tension hidden below the surface.

“I only know of one for sure. Ry Sabir. There may beothers, but he’s the only one who’s” —
everybit of color had drained from Ian’s face as she spoke —“linked to me. Ian? What’s the
matter?”

“Ry?” he whispered. “Ry Sabir?”

Kait nodded. “You know him?”

For a long time he said nothing. Then he glanced at her, and hewas a changed man. Cold. Deadly.
Full of hate. “I knowhim,” he said. “We have things to do. We’re going tohave to get his ship,
and we’re going to have to beat him to do it.”

“Three of us against a ship’s crew? We can’t takethe ship by force.”

Ian rested both hands on Kait’s shoulders and stared intoher eyes. “If Ry and I meet, one of us is
going to die. I knowmy chances of killing him aren’t good. But if I have to die,I’ll die fighting.”

He stalked away from her, heading for the bay.

She looked after him and considered the trouble that was tocome, and what she might do to
prevent it. She ran through her headall the histories she could recall where smaller forces
haddefeated greater ones. Somewhere in the past, someone she’dstudied about had found himself
in a similar situation, and hadmanaged to survive. In most of the cases, like the Brejmen defeatof
the Cathomartic hordes or the Marepori repelling the Jastinvaders, the smaller force was better-
armed andbetter-disciplined.

With the right terrain and the right weapons and plenty of timeto prepare, Kait thought the three
of them might have had similarsuccess. But without those advantages . . .

There is always a way to win, General Talismartea hadwritten in his masterwork, The Warrior’s
Book. If you arewilling to redefine winning.

Ian had defined winning as taking over Ry’s ship andforcing the crew to sail back to Calimekka.
But she knew that evenif she and her friends could wrest control from the captain,they’d have a
hellish time keeping it — and if they lostit, they were dead. But what if they didn’t need to be
incharge to win?

She had to redefine winning. They won if all of them got back toIbera alive and free, with the
Mirror of Souls in their possession.That was the only thing they had to have.

If they didn’t have to take over the ship and control itfor months, they were free to consider any
form of safe passage aswinning. They couldn’t hope to have safe passage given tothem. But they
might hope to demand it.