"Bunch, Chris - Seer King 1 - Seer King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bunch Chris)

Yet I am not old. I am not yet forty. All that has happened came in
less than fifteen years.

Fifteen years, given a few months each way, since I first met the
seer named Tenedos, facing death in a deadly mountain pass of
the Border States.

Fifteen years, when I rode behind the emperor, his aide, cavalry
commander, and then tribune, holding close my family's
faithЧWe Hold TrueЧalthough I now realize that loyalty was felt
by only one of us.

He and I were the only two who were there at the beginningЧand
the end.

Our enemies would have said there were three:

Laish Tenedos.

Myself.

And Death, the dark manifestation of the great goddess Saionji,
creator, destroyer, skull-grin tight through the folds of her cloak,
swords held high, pale horse nickering, eager to strike again.

Now there are but two of us.

Myself and Death.

My last friend.



TWO

The Seer Tenedos

My doom, and that of all Numantia, was sealed on the day I scored
five goals at rol. This may sound like a jokeЧhow could a
horsemen's game make Saionji rip our lands apart, casting millions
back on the Wheel to await rebirth?

But there is no joke, nor was there on the day of my disgrace.
The Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers took their sport most seriously.

If it hadn't been for those five goals, the adjutant's pride, his lying,
and my subsequent disgrace, another officer might have been
sent to Sulem Pass, one with less to lose, and Laish Tenedos
might have died with a hillman's spear through his throat, and the
years of bloody war and dark magic might never have happened.