"Sean Russell - River Into Darkness 2 - Compass of the Soul" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Sean)

helplessly along the course of an underground river, fighting for air… struggling to live.

Something bounced off her temple, and Anna opened her eyes to find the sun higher, providing a coverlet
of delicious warmth. She had stopped shivering.

“Chuff…”

The bird perched above her. “Whose pet are you?” she asked, then realized an acorn lay but an inch
away. Had it dropped that for her?

She turned her gaze back to the bird, and then sat up, suddenly filled with wonder. “But you are no one’s
pet, are you?” she whispered. “Flames!” She patted a pocket in her waistcoat and removed a square of
wet linen, then glanced back at the bird.

“Farrelle’s ghost, but it must have begun already.” Tentatively she reached out a hand to the
dark-feathered bird—crowlike with a red bill and legs of the same hue. But the bird hopped away, only a
foot; and there it stayed. “Chuff,” it said again.

Anna laughed. “ ‘Chuff’ yourself.” Gingerly, she unfolded the linen and spread it out on the ground in the
sun. She separated each precious seed, blowing on them gently. The seed had been her salvation;
without it she would never have found the resources to survive the trip out of the cavern, even though
eating it raw produced only a fraction of its power.

The bird began to hop about excitedly, and she turned a warning gaze upon it. “This is not for you,” she
said.

Overwhelmed by sudden weariness, she leaned back against the bole of a tree, but kept her eyes open,
afraid the bird might make free with her seed. Where were the others? Certainly they must be some
hours ahead. She had waited as long as she possibly could before following them out.

Anna had arrived at the pool and collapsed, too exhausted to start back up the tunnel in search of
another passage. There her candles had burned to darkness. Not knowing what to do when she heard
the others approaching, she had crawled into a crevice and lay still, sure anyone could hear the pounding
of her heart. By the poor candle light, Erasmus and the others had not seen her nor had they the energy
or inclination to search. She had watched them go

into the watery passage. Heard them shouting back and forth between the chambers. And when she
thought she could wait no longer and still have strength, she had followed.

The thought of that water-filled passage caused her to pull her limbs close. She trembled.

“Do not think of it,” she warned. “Do not.”

She had survived! And here she was… on the surface of the world once more. Reborn to the light.
Reborn—for certainly she had been in the netherworld these last days. Days! Could it have been only
days?

“But what to do?” she whispered. Deacon Rose had been with the others, and she knew that he would
soon be hunting her. Hunting her even now, perhaps. Did he think she had escaped ahead of them?