"Thieves World - Beyond The Veil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

"Crit says," Bomba announced, her smile dropping away into a frown as she poured
the fine wine for herself and Tempus, "that he's not done with her. He'll bring
her out to the farm in Hidden Valley when he's through—on the 'off chance," he
told her, that you might be there. He wants you to know that she claims to be of
the Rankan 3rd Commando. Is that possible?"
"Why not?" He sipped the elegant wine. "Because she's a woman? Because she's so
far upcountry? Or because she's looking for me?" Tempus had formed the 3rd
Commando a quarter-century before. It had been instrumental in Ranke's northerly
expansion during the so-called long wars. It had been used badly, in his
opinion, for purposes other than honorable; it had obliterated city-states and
contributed to the downfall of a worthy empire. He'd left it to those who had
perverted its purpose; he'd not served as a Rankan field commander on active
duty since that time. There was not a death squad or even a remnant of the once
ferocious Nisibisi mages (who had a well-earned reputation for viciousness) that
rivaled the 3rd Commando in fielded cruelty or gratuitous violence. Ranke's fame
as barbarians second to none stemmed directly from the "unending deaths" the 3rd
Commando inflicted on its captives. Taking to heart the doctrine that an army
has failed in its purpose if it must be fielded, a war already lost once one
must be fought, he had conceived them, hand-picked them, trained them, and
spread word of the scourge they had become—to use them as a deterrent. But the
emperor had turned them loose on subjugated peoples and rebel city-states and
the slaves they had taken and sold off had made of the original members rich
landowners, lords, and statesmen.
But nothing could change their true nature: they were assassins, experts at
torture, skulkers, and berserkers—true followers of the Rankan gods of war. If
this woman was one, she was seeking him for good reason: there was nothing in
Tyse worth the time of even one of that unit's members. Years ago they'd
conquered the north and deported its peoples, and driven the feared Nisibisi
wizard-caste up into the peaks known as Wizardwall.
He was curious, riding toward the Nisibisi border on one of his steel-gray Trфs
horses, as to what the 3rd Commando wanted with him.
He was also interested in Grit's reasons for handling the matter as he had.
Preoccupied thus, he forgot all about his determination to avoid Jihan. And so
as he crossed the border into Nisibis through a narrow canyon which led directly
to Hidden Valley, where he and Niko had recently agreed that the stud farm
(which belonged in part to all Stepsons but mostly to Tempus and Niko) would be
established, Jihan spurred a second Trфs stallion out from behind a rockfall to
intercept him.
"Ha! Riddler! You are found out!" On his horse, she was an arresting sight in
her brown/green/ gray scale armor of metaphysical manufacture, her proud,
classically beautiful head high and bronze hair streaming, her broad shoulders,
impossibly tiny waist, and muscular thighs shown to her best advantage as she
cantered up beside him astride a horse than which there were only two better in
the known world.
As the horse was not hers, neither was she responsible for the beauty of her
form or the perfection of her accouterments: she was a Froth Daughter, a
supernal sprite, and her eyes glowed with red flecks of anger as she brought her
mount alongside his and reached down to grab his horse's reins below its bit.
"Where have you been, slaggard?
I have searched everywhere for you. You must not leave me alone so long." There