Aes triplex
They returned to the hotel after sunset and, up to his room to sleep.
Tanais morning woke delicate knock on the door. She stood up and pushed the bolt. There stood the innkeeper.
- I have two news for you - good and bad - he began, barely crossed the threshold. - I'll start with the good. Yesterday afternoon without a trace disappeared palace of our ruler, and this morning, and he and the first rich men of the city are fighting on the porch with the poor for a crust of bread and a copper groshik. And now the bad news yesterday morning about you mastered some armed people. It would be better if you leave my hotel. And believe me, I'm not worried about myself.
Tanais thanked the innkeeper for a warning, and when he left, woke Aletheia.
After dinner, they laid the remains of food in a travel bag and left the room.
- What are you waiting for, God knows, - said the innkeeper, when Tanais was paying him for the post. - Take the sword. I like it to anything, because I'm not a warrior, but you can come in handy.
- Thank you, - Tanais thrust the sword into the empty scabbard, and the girls left the hotel.
Leaving the city gates, they let the horses light trot along the road to Feodosiya. Around as the eye could see, he stretched a bare steppe, on the horizon framed by pale lilac teeth mountains. There was a dry and hot wind, so unbearably fired hot rays of the midday sun.
Some vague sense of anxiety caused Tanais look, and in the swirling cloud of dust in the distance she instinctively sensed the approach of a new danger.
- I bet it's for our souls, - she told her friend, pointing to the dust cloud.
They spurred their horses, but the pursuers overtook them with the inevitability of death, and laid siege to his horse, Tanais said:
- Then a gallop.
- And you?
- And I'll try to hold them off.
- You will die!
- Death awaits us in any way. Is not it better to meet her in battle than on the block? Hurry.
- There is a destiny? - Asked Aletheia.
- There are, - without a shadow of doubt in his voice said Tanais.
- So, we have it - one for two. Together, we shall be saved - or die together.
Unfolding the horses, the girl rushed toward persecutors. Tanais Galloping learned from its sheath the sword given to the innkeeper, and the decapitated body of the enemy, caught the stirrup leg, led sensed the will of the knight in azure steppe.
Tanais horse raced through the ranks of the pursuers, and a lot of grief caused his indomitable run, but in the heat of battle Tanais Aletheia has lost sight of, and it fell into the hands of a huge warrior with a scar crossing the entire face.
- Drop the sword! - He cried and held the dagger to his chest Aletheia.
Tanais looked back into a scream, and her hand unclenched itself. Bloody sword fell silently into the grass.