"Kathryn Sullivan - Oracle of Cilens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sullivan Kathryn)

toward the red tufa cliffs below Caere. The birds had turned above Ramtha's cart, he
recalled with a sudden stab of fear, before flying into the northwest. Into Cilens' sector!
Somehow he knew that he was right. Ramtha had never been able to see her own future.
And Uni was the goddess of marriage as well as the home. "No, holy one, not just a mere
treasure," he groaned aloud, "but my wife!"

Ramtha shivered suddenly and wrapped her wool mantle over her linen tunic. The sunlight
seemed oddly cold. She clutched at the side of the cart, feeling a familiar whirling sickness
as the vision struck.

Charun, Bringer of Death, laughed as he strode toward the oncoming cart. Sharp teeth
shining whitely within his black beard, the giant nodded to her and raised his hammer.

"No!" Ramtha protested. The Umbrian, unhearing, continued to drive the cart straight at the
god.
Laughing, the giant pointed his hammer towards Septem, and the slave cried out, doubling
over. Blood flowed from his death wound, and Ramtha saw a sword gleaming faintly.

"Are you all right, Lady?"

Ramtha stared wildly at Septem. He was alive, turning towards her from the front of the cart,
the reins held tightly in his hands. "Yes," she gasped. "No! We must be inside the city before
the storm breaks!"
The slave glanced at the faint line of clouds on the eastern horizon and back again at her
white face. He shrugged and started the mules moving again. These Etruscans and their
gods! He would never become accustomed to the Lady's strange fits.

Ramtha stared at the solid back before her and shuddered with fear. He was going to die!
Before they would reach the safety of the city, he would die!
She tried to still her trembling. She had seen Charun and his hammer many times, but never
before had he struck so near to her. She took a deep breath. What was fated, would be. But
who would wish to kill Septem? Why?

Her visions of the morning returned, and she fumbled under her mantle for her belt knife. Her
eyes studied the orchards set back from the road, and she held her knife ready, hidden
under folds of cloth.

Dark clouds rolled swiftly across the sky. The fading sunlight turned greenish. Shivering
anew at these ominous signs, Ramtha tried frantically to picture the road to Caere, a road
she had traveled all her life. They would be attacked while on the road. Where?
Caere, like all the old Rasena cities, was set on a hilltop overlooking the harbor and thus
easily defended from the pirate raids common in its early years. The small stretch of plain
between the harbor and the hill was clearly visible to the guards posted on Caere's outside
walls, as were the two neighboring hills, Caere's cemeteries. The best place for an attack,
then, would be on the hill road, where the roadway often wound out of sight of the city
guards.

Ramtha glanced at the distant city walls and slipped her knife back within her belt. They still
had some distance to go before she need fear attack; the mules had only now trotted past
the turnoff for the road to the hill Abaton and its tombs.