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

He listened for a voice he might know. Be still, he told himself, let them pass, they would be easy to track in this snow.
They’ll make camp at dusk and it will be easy to find out who they are. But even as he gave himself this advice, he saw
a movement in the mist not twenty paces away. A dark form in the blinding white. Moving toward him? Away? He
tried to catch any hint of color, a familiar silhouette. A man on foot, walking slowly. Komawara almost stood for a
better view, so surprised was he by the sight: dark beard on a face tanned to leather by relentless wind and sun, a vest
of doeskin over light mail. A barbarian! A barbarian warrior leading a horse through the Jai Lung Hills.

Komawara sank lower as the man picked his way up the slope toward him. Behind the walker came others, their size
amplified by the fog. Knowing that a man could look directly at him in this fog and see nothing, Komawara held himself
utterly still. His mare shifted, he could almost feel her quiver. Do not move, he willed her, make no sound.
Concentrating on stillness, he found himself controlling his breathing, forcing his muscles to relax.

The barbarians turned to Komawara’s right and made their way across the slope, led by the man on foot who searched
out the path between the trees and rock. Sixteen armed men and they did not have the look of the hunted.

Is it possible they do not know we pursue them? And then he felt reality waver for an instant. Cold awareness. No,
there were no wounded, no riderless mounts. It was impossible that they could have escaped a meeting with
Komawara’s guard unscathed, of that he was certain.

The last man of the party disappeared into the fog less than a stone’s throw away and Komawara let out a long held
breath. Barbarians in the Jai Lung Hills! Bandits suddenly seemed an insignificant threat—a mere annoyance.
Barbarians in the Jai Lung Hills!

The lord waited, listening as the creak of leather and the clatter of hooves faded. Looking around at the sha-dowless
light he wondered how long it would be until

darkness fell. He thought often of his companions, twenty of his guard and half as many local men, wandering
somewhere in the mist. They were well enough armed, as one would expect of men of Seh, but they were not fully
armored.

Komawara had made a careful assessment of the men who had passed into the fog—they traveled light—little armor in
evidence and only short bows and swords. They would carry skinning knives also, they always did. Weapons well
chosen for fighting in the hills. He wished Shu-yun was with him for there was no telling what his powers of
observation might have added.

Komawara took up the reins and coaxed his mount to her feet. He began to follow. The footing in the melting snow
was treacherous to leather soles, but the young lord chose to walk all the same. The mare would carry him, she had
heart enough for that, but he preferred to give her a chance to recover—and walking allowed him to examine at first
hand the barbarians’ tracks in what appeared to be fading light.

The occasional distorted echo of horses passing came out of the fog and Komawara soon found the trail led out onto
a narrow road that wound its way around the shoulder of the hill. Although this seemed vaguely familiar to him,
Komawara was still not sure where he was.

Here and there hoofprints remained clear in the snow and a closer examination stopped Komawara abruptly. He’d
watched the barbarians pass and not even marked that they rode horses, and fine ones, too. They rode horses like men
of Seh—like bandits or barbarian chieftains! The horse was not adapted to life in the steppe and desert and was
replaced there by the barbarian’s hardy pony.

“Barbarians,” Komawara whispered. And here he was, an advisor to the Imperial Governor, separated from his