"Sean Russell - The Initiate Brother 2 - Gatherer of Clouds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Sean)

Komawara turned in a complete circle, a motion almost as slow as Brother Shuyun practicing his meditations of
movement. Nothing… only the suggestion of mysterious forms: to his right a twisted, pointing limb perhaps belonging
to an ancient pine; behind him, an outcropping of rock suggesting the face of a disapproving Mountain God.

Shifting the horse-bow to his right hand Komawara worked the fingers, cramped from holding a notched arrow for far
too long. He returned the bow to the ready position and moved forward ten paces more, listening.

Years had passed since Komawara had last hunted the Jai Lung Hills—in company with his father then, when the old
man still had strength to ride. Much had changed, more than he ever expected.

There were bandits in the hills now. Holdings had seen

their gates battered down in the night and only armed parties would chance the roads.

The lord stopped again, listening as Shuyun had taught when they traveled in the desert. Armor bit into Koma-wara’s
shoulder blade where the leather shirt had worn through, his left hand cramped again, his boots oozed when he
walked, and his horse favored her right forefoot. If that was not enough, he was also hopelessly separated from his
companions and had only the vaguest notion of where he was. A soft drizzle fell, slowly soaking into the lacings of his
light armor. He listened.

Snow, heavy with rain, slipped from a tree branch and fell in a sodden pile at the lord’s feet, causing his horse to shy.
That, Komawara realized, was a true indication of the turmoil of his spirit—his mare had sensed it, had caught it in fact.
Every few seconds the same soft thudding could be heard somewhere out in the fog.

He moved forward, then paused, straining to hear. Was that the sound of a horse, far off? The creaking of a tree
distorted by the distance, by the imagination?

Komawara tried to stretch the tension out of his back and shoulders. In a fog there could be more to fear than
brigands: his own men he trusted, but the local men who had joined the hunt for bandits suffered in a silence of poorly
hidden fear. Men quickly lost their inner calm in fog such as this. It was as Shuyun had said, robbed of sight, every
sound became a threat—even a falling lump of snow would be in danger from an arrow quickly loosed. The arrow from
an ally ended more lives in battle than men would speak of.

Ten paces forward. Stop. Listen.

And then, among all the thousand imagined sounds, unmistakably, the thud of hooves on stone. His own mount
pricked up her ears. Komawara jigged at the bit and pulled her nose up to his cheek.

“Shh,” he whispered as though she understood. Three paces put them among a stand of long-needled pines. The lord
pulled the reins over the mare’s head and made her lie down, saddle and bags still in place. Automatically testing his
sword in its scabbard, he crouched down, intent on becoming part of his surroundings.

Horses moving, the scrape of loose rock shifting, the creaking of leather. Komawara drew the arrow back by

half. A horse stumbled and a man’s voice could be heard making comforting sounds, but the words were not clear.

Where? Komawara turned his head from side to side, certain at first that the sound came from uphill, then equally sure
its source was to his right.