"Cook, Glen - Dread Empire 04 - Octobers Baby" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

"For. Reluctantly on some parts. Our more timid souls don't think your luck will hold. Personally, I'm satisfied. It's what I've been arguing for all along."

"Tonight?"

"Everything's ready."

"Then so are we."

"One little matter. Some articles for you to sign. That was the hard part, getting them to accept a position from which they couldn't back down."

Ragnarson chuckled as he examined the parchment. "An exchange, then. My own guarantees." He handed the man a document he had had prepared. "And my word, which's worth more. Unless your fealty becomes suspect."

"As an act of good faith, some information which, I believe, only I outside the Nordmen councils possess."

Ragnarson's eyebrows rose questioningly.

"The Captal of Savernake has been making the rounds of the barons. He slipped out of Sedlmayr just before you arrived."

"So?"

"He claims the true child of the old King is in his custody. You've heard the stories about a changeling? He's trying to find backers for his 'real' heir."

"The Captal," Bragi interjected. "He's old?" He described the sorcerer he and Mocker had encountered in Ruderin.

"You've met?"

"In passing. You've told me more than you realize, friend. I'll return the favor, but don't spread it around. The power behind the Captal is Shinsan."

Mundwiller went pale. "What interest could they have in Ravelin?"

"A passage to the west. A quietly attained bridgehead against the day when they move to attain world dominion. All spur-of-the-moment speculation, of course. Who knows the motives of Shinsan?"

"True. We move at the second hour. I'm to lead you to the postern we hold." iv) Savernake Gap

Bragi occupied Sedlmayr without disturbing its citizens' sleep, capturing the Nordmen and disarming their troops. Baron Kartye had assumed he would decamp in the night.

Sedlmayr taken, Ragnarson secured Delhagen, then decamped in earnest.

Ragnarson departed with twenty-five hundred men, over half of them Kaveliners. None were men he had given Reskird to dispute the Armstead ford. If forced to fight, he would miss those bows.

Kildragon, he learned, had held the ford so successfully that he had almost turned Vodicka backЧtill the Baroness Breitbarth had surprised him from behind. He had barely gotten out. Fleeing east, he had encountered Volstokiners who had crossed the river above him. He had abandoned everything but his weapons, swum the Ebeler, and was now hiding in the Bodenstead forest.

Vodicka had shown his gratitude to the Baroness by making her prisoner and sacking Damhorst. That gentleman had abandoned all pretense, was destroying everyone and everything as he advanced toward Vorgre-berg.

The barons harrying the capital now eyed him as the greater danger.

In Volstokin itself there was trouble, bands of horsemen cutting, in the guerrilla style, at the roots of royal power. Ragnarson suspected Haroun.

Good. Nothing prevented him from doing what he wanted. He marched eastward, passed within twenty miles of Vorgreberg, struck the caravan route east of the city and, spreading panic among the Nordmen, swept on till he entered Savernake, at the juncture of the Kapenrungs and Mountains of M'Hand, where the Savernake Gap debouched into Kavelin. He considered the Captal the most dire threat to the Queen.