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

"Damn. Next time I'm using new people." He laughed.

Marena Dimura shouted on the slopes. Something broke cover, ran a few yards toward them, then fled the other way. A bowstring twanged. The creature jumped, screamed, fell. Ragnarson and Blackfang moved up, a dozen bowmen at their backs.

"What is it?" Blackfang asked. The body was the size of that of a six-year-old. It had the head of a squirrel.

"Coronel!"

Bragi glanced up. A Marena Dimura tossed something. He caught it. A child-sized crossbow.

Haaken caught a quiver of bolts, pulled one out, examined its head. "Poisoned."

Ragnarson had the word passed, saw shields start to be carried less sloppily.

"Poor fellow," said Blackfang, turning the corpse with a foot. "Didn't want to fight. Could've gotten off a shot."

"Maybe the light was too bright." Ragnarson studied the black cloud growing over the bluff with the face of a man.

During the next hour, as the sky darkened, the Marena Dimura flushed two score creatures of almost as many shapes. Several of Ragnarson's people learned the hard way about the poisoned bolts. The little people weren't aggressive, but they got ferocious when cornered.

"Wait'11 you see the owl-faced ones," Ragnarson said as they reached the natural obelisk he had marked as their goal for the hour. "Some as big as you, and even uglier."

"Speaking of ugly," Haaken replied with sudden grimness.

They had found the missing scouts.

The men hung on a gallows-like rack, from curved spikes piercing the bases of their skulls. The flesh was gone from their faces, fingers, and toes. Their bellies had been ripped open. Their bowels hung to the ground. Their hearts had been cut out. Painted in blood on a pale boulder were the Itaskian words, "Leave Kavelin."

"That's Shinsan work, sure," Blackfang growled.

"Must be," Sir Andvbur agreed. "The Captal's dramatics were never this grisly."

"Get that writing cleaned up," said Ragnarson. "Then let the men see this. Ought to get them vengeance-mad."

The sight did stir a new, grim determination, especially among the Marena Dimura. Hitherto they had done no more than flush the Captal's timorous creatures. Now they hunted for blood.

Intensity of resistance rose sharply. Bragi moved more archers up to support the Marena Dimura, and Trolledyngjans to shield the bowmen from any sudden charge. He had fires and torches lighted and slowed the advance to an even more cautious pace.

A little later, while they waited for the Trolledyngjans to clear the road of a band of armored owl-faces behind a boulder barricade, he asked Sir Andvbur, "How long before the snows come? Soon?"

"Within the month, this high up."

"Bad. We've got to take Maisak or they'll have all winter to strengthen it."

"True. We couldn't maintain a siege once winter came."

"Not with what we've got. Haaken, get those boulders cleared. We don't want bottlenecks behind us."

Against continually increasing resistance, Ragnarson's men had the best of the casualty ratio.