"Eric van Lustbader - Sunset Warrior 1 - The Sunset Warrior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lustbader Eric van)

still beating
within him, shook his head, and the blade of the dagger gleamed in the
Corridor's light.
At that moment Robin saw another face appear. Long and lean with a cleft jaw
filled with
determination, a very high, narrow forehead topped by coal-black hair so slick
and shiny it had
blue highlights, it was dominated by wide-apart eyes of a clear piercing blue,
whose
penetrating gaze appeared to take in everything while giving away nothing.
'Qieto, Marcsh. Let the fellow through.' The voice was deep and commanding.
Marcsh heard the words and automatically moved aside, but the anger refused to
die, beating
ineffectually at the cage of his burly chest. He glared in silent resentment
as the figure moved
past him, careful that his Saardin should not see, and thus punish him.
Ronin found himself in an antechamber off which he saw two rooms set at
angles. The one on
his left was furnished starkly and functionally with a large work table and
smallish writing desk
along one wall, and a narrow bed along the opposite wall. The room was dark
but he could
make out a figure sprawled on the bed. Battered and scarred cabinets lined the
upper areas of
three walls. A lone chair squatted empty in the middle of the cubicle.
The room to the right was less utilitarian. Two walls were lined with low
couches and
cushioned chairs. The daggam, including the two who had been sent for Stahlig,
sat on the
couch farthest from the door, amid a meal. In the anteroom two more daggam
stood flanking
Stahlig and the man who commanded the daggam. Ronin thought they must have
torn down
some walls in order to make these quarters. Two-cubicle quarters were rare
enough Upshaft,
but Down here -
'Ah, Ronin,' said the Medicine Man. 'This is Freidal, Saardin of Security for
the Freehold.'
Freidal inclined his long body from the waist in a gesture that was somehow
theatrical. He did
not smile, and his eyes were blank beacons that studied Ronin for another
brief moment before he
returned his gaze to Stahlig. They resumed their discussion.
Freidal was dressed all in deep grey save for the knee-high boots of the
Saardin and the
oblique chest stripes of the Chondrin, both of which were silver. Ronin
wondered at this:
overlord and tactician, eyes and ears, all rolled into one.
'Nevertheless,' he was saying now, 'do you take responsibility for this man
being here?'