"Martha Wells - Wheel of the Infinite" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells Martha)

coals from the banked fire.
When she came back around the wagons, she saw the creature had halted at the edge of the trees,
but the swordsman stopped and threw another rock at it, and it couldn’t resist the challenge. It flowed
forward, losing some of its shape as it crossed the invisible boundary into the forest.
Very good, Maskelle thought. At least it behaved like a water spirit. Maybe it also scented the temple
on the swordsman, just the way she had. She followed hurriedly as it moved further into the trees,
wedging the gourd under her arm so she could work the cork out while still keeping hold of the cup,
which was steadily burning her hand.
She caught up to them just as her swordsman turned at bay in a little clearing. The creature rushed for
him, still eerily silent, and he ducked and dodged, turning and catching it with an upward stroke of the siri
that would have disemboweled a man. The metal split the black surface with no discernible effect.
Rastim couldn‘t have done that, Maskelle thought, impressed.
She crouched down, dumping gourd and cup on the ground, knowing he couldn’t keep that up for
long. She tore her sleeve off and shoved it into the open neck of the gourd, then held the cup up to it.
This better work.
She looked up in time to see her swordsman bowled over backward as the water creature rushed
him. It towered over him, and she shouted, “Over here! You’ve got the wrong one!”
It hesitated for a breath then rushed back toward her.
 She had time for the thought that it hadn’t seemed to move this fast when it was after someone else.
The rag caught when the creature was right on top of her and she slung the gourd into it, throwing the cup
after it for good measure. The gourd dissolved when it passed through the creature’s surface, the oil
spreading out in a cloudy wave over it. She ducked an angry swipe from a limb, and for a moment she
thought the oil hadn’t had time to catch. Then fire swept up the surface and the creature tore away,
thrashing and whirling.
Maskelle scrambled back. The creature was a cloudy mass of dark swirling vapor, fire running in
glowing rivulets over its surface. It heaved and struggled, losing more of its shape every moment, until it
burst and vanished in a spray of water.
Maskelle scrubbed the droplets off her face with her remaining sleeve. The water tasted muddy and
foul, like the bottom of the river. Across the clearing, her swordsman rolled to his feet and came toward
her. He stared at her, breathing hard, then said, “That wasn’t enough heat to boil away all that water.”
Maskelle sighed. She would have preferred to be admired for her cleverness instead of questioned
for her lack of logic. Sucking on her cut finger, she said, “That was its own stupidity. It panicked and
dissipated itself.” She shook her head. “It shouldn’t have followed you in here, it should have stayed out
there and made me come after it. But there’s not much brain mixed into all that water.” Thank the
Ancestors for once. “It wasn’t an ordinary water spirit, so we’re lucky this worked at all.”
He looked down at the disappearing puddle, then knelt and ran his hand over the grass curiously,
cupping the water in his palm. “How does it kill people?”
“The little ones lay down on sleeping people and drown them. This one . . . could do just about
anything it wanted, I think.”
He glanced up at her, then shook the moisture off his hand.
Maskelle started to speak, but the words caught in her throat. The sense of alarm was urgent again,
was more intense with every breath. Idiot, this was a distraction. “There’s something else.”
He stood. “Where?”
She was already running back toward the compound, crashing through brush and tripping over roots.
She swung by the cypress to grab up her staff, then ran flat out across the open ground toward the
Ariaden’s camp. As she reached the edge of it, she heard the tailgate of a wagon creak.
As soon as she rounded the bulk of Firac’s wagon, she saw it. There was a figure standing on the
now open tailgate of her wagon.
She was too far away. The figure turned toward her, raised its hand. Then her swordsman tore
around the back of Rastim’s wagon, coming at the intruder from behind, catching it in a tackle and