Читать «THE SEA DEVIL S EYE (зксм-3)» онлайн - страница 33

"Look at 'em," one pirate growled. "You'd think they was watchdogs close as they eyeball a body."

Azla assigned four of the ten men in the crew to guard the longboat. She took the lead with long strides, crossing the shoreline to the nearest group of men frying fish.

"I need some information," Azla told the strangers.

A hulking brute of a man standing nearby gave her an evil, gap-toothed grin. "Ain't nothing free here, wench. Mayhap you show me a little kindness-"

Before the man even knew what was going on, Azla ripped her scimitar free and touched the blade to his throat.

"How much," she asked coldly, "would you be willing to pay for your next breath?"

Color drained from the big man's features. "What was it you'd be wanting?" he asked.

Azla kept the scimitar at the big man's throat. "There's a diviner who lives here. Do you know her?"

"I know of her, Cap'n." The big man's Adam's apple slid across the blade's edge. "Name's Dehnee. She gives readings and such for them what want 'em."

"Where can I find her?"

The man pointed up the narrow ledge that wandered back and forth across the cliff face. Other branches led off to other caves, giving each a portion of privacy. The diviner's cave was halfway up and on the right.

"Take us there," Azla commanded.

"Cap'n, I'd rather not. The woman lives with a ghost."

"You'd rather not more than you'd rather try breathing through your neck?"

The man started walking, glancing in cold rebuke at his companions who sat without comment. Azla kept the scimitar's point at the back of the man's neck.

Jherek kept a ready hand on his cutlass hilt as he brought up the party's rear. They marched up the narrow, inclined path to the cave the big man indicated.

A handmade sign hung beside the cave mouth that simply proclaimed DIVINER. A thick carpet of sea lion hides stretched across the cave mouth, hung from a length of rope. The hides possessed the maned heads and forelegs of great lions, but the body and tail of a fish. The bottom of the carpet of stitched hides was rolled up and sewn around rocks that weighted it to the ground.

Azla dismissed the big man with a turn of her head. He went quickly, muttering beneath his breath.

"Dehnee," the half-elf captain called out. "I've got coin if you've a mind and skills enough to earn it."

The hides slid to the side, revealing the torchlit interior of the cave. A woman no older than her late twenties stood at the entrance. Her hair was mousy brown, long and pulled back in a ponytail. Gold eyes regarded the party and showed no fear, set deeply in a face that was chiseled and translucent as if she seldom saw the sun. She wore a gown of good material that showed age as well as care.