"Claremont, Chris & Lucas, George - Chronicles of the Shadow War 02 - Shadow Dawn - part02" - читать интересную книгу автора (Claremont Chris)

stepped beyond the firelight, haunted eyes and bodies turning to fol-
low as she did. "There should be dancing."
Voices curled at her from the mist, a litany of resentment building
to outright hatred: a Daikini, The cursed naiads tore our fish traps; the na-
iad, The cursed Daikini befouled our water. Another Daikini, The dryads
spelled our orchards so the fruit rotted on the stem; a dryad, They clear-cut
whole groves!
Good neighbors they had been, the Daikini who tilled the soil and
shaped this rich land to their liking, and those of Lesser Faery who had
resided here for as long as there was memory. There were resources in
abundance and all the various races had long ago learned to share the
wealth of this valley to the benefit of all.
Then came a change. A growing uneasiness that dated from the
Cataclysm, open hostility following the debacle of Elora's Ascension.
The culmination was an incident at midsummer. Children went miss-
ing and suddenly all the old stories about kidnapped babies and
changelings didn't seem so fanciful anymore. By the time the young-
sters had been found and the truth made known-that they'd run off
because of a beating and stayed hidden for fear of a worse one-the
damage had been done. A family of trolls had been discovered and
locked in a crow cage, together with any of the other races that could
be found. The village had its vengeance on all it thought had done it
harm.
Not so long after, the slain got their own back. As they were mur-
dered they cried out to their own kindred beyond the Veil, the High
Elves of Greater Faery, who retaliated in kind.
The blood of too many innocents had been spilled, each drop taint-
ing the ground on which it fell, poisoning the earth as thoroughly and
lastingly as these souls had been.
For what seemed the longest while, Elora stood with shoulders
hunched, back curved, head bowed, as if she'd suddenly been bur-
dened with an impossible weight. Her hands hung straight at her side,
half curled toward a fist. To Rool and Bastian, watching from the
campsite, it appeared as though her inner radiance had dimmed to the
point where she was no more noticeable than any of the ghosts. As
wisps of fog curled and flowed about her, she too often reached the
brink of vanishing. Far from healing these crippled souls, Elora looked
more in danger of being consumed by them.
Then, as if in answer to some cue that only she could hear, the
young woman's head came up, her body straightening to its full
height. In absolute stature, there were many among the gathering






who stood taller than she, yet her presence had become so forceful,