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

Mocker sputtered, fumed, and told some of his tallest lies. Vodicka's men put him in chains and led him away. No one explained why.

But he could guess. They knew him. He had done El Murid many small embarrassments. There was the time he had sweet-talked/kidnapped the man's daughter. There was the time he had convinced an important general that he could reveal a short-cut through the Kapenrungs, and had led the man into an army-devouring ambush.

Still, daylight seen from chains was sweeter than dungeon darkness. And at least an illusion of a chance to escape existed.

He could have gotten away. Escape tricks were among his talents. But he saw a chance to lurk on the fringe of the enemy's councils.

He got to see a lot of daylightЧand moonlight, starlight, and weatherЧthe next few months, while Volstokin's drunken giant of an army lumbered about Ravelin's western provinces. Vodicka wanted his prizes near him always, but never comfortable.

Mocker didn't get along with his fellow prisoners. They were Nordmen, gentlemen who had barely paid their ransoms to Bragi's agents when taken by Vodicka.

Ragnarson had won himself a low, black place in Vodicka's heart. He had already plundered the best from Ahsens, Dolusich, Gaehle, Holtschlaw, and Heiderscheid provinces. Bragi's leavings were not satisfying the levies, who had been called from their homes for a campaign that would last past harvest time.

Vodicka kept escalating his promises to keep his army from evaporating.

Mocker wished he could get out among the troops. The damage he could talk... But his guards, now, were men of Hammad al Nakir. They were deaf to words not approved by their shaghun. His chance to escape had passed him by. The looting improved in Echtenache and Rubbelke, though there a price in blood had to be paid. In Rubbelke, sixty miles west of Vorgreberg and fifteen north of the caravan route, a thousand Nordmen met Volstokin on the plains before Woerheide.

Vodicka insisted that his prisoners watch. His pride still stung from the difficulty he had had forcing the Armstead ford.

Vodicka was more talented at diplomacy and intrigue than at war, but refused to admit his shortcomings.

Tons of flesh and steel surged together in long, thunderous waves amidst storms of dust and swirling autumn leaves. Swords like lightning flashed in the thunderheads of war; the earth received a rain of blood and broken blades and bodies.

Volstokin's knights began to flee. Enraged, Vodicka prepared to sacrifice his infantry.

Mocker watched with delight and game-fan commentary. The Nordmen had no infantry of their own. Unhorsed, without the protection of footmen, they would be easy prey for Volstokin's more mobile men-at-arms.

The shaghun asked Vodicka to hold the infantry. He would turn the tide.

Mocker had encountered many wizards. This one was no mountain-mover, but was superior for a survivor of El Murid's early anti-sorcery program. If he were an example of what the Disciple had been developing behind the Sahel, the west was in for some wicked surprises.

He conjured bears from smoke, unnaturally huge monsters misty about the edges but fanged and clawed like creatures bred only to kill. The Nordmen recognized them harmless, but their mounts were impressed beyond control. They broke, many throwing their riders in their panic.

"Now your infantry," said the shaghun.

"Woe," Mocker mumbled, "am doomed. Am condemned to hopelessest of hopeless plights. Will never see home of self again." His fellow prisoners watched him curiously. They had never understood his presence. He had done nothing to enlighten them. But he had learned from them.

He knew who planned to betray whom, and when and how, and the most secret of their changing alliances. But Mocker suspected their scheming no longer mattered. Vodicka's and Bragi's armies were the real powers in Ravelin now.

Vodicka's leadership remained indecisive. Twenty miles from Vorgreberg he went into camp. He seemed to be waiting for something.

What came was not what he wanted. From his seat outside Vodicka's pavilion, Mocker listened to the King's curses when he discovered that the Queen's Own, though inferior in numbers, were upon him. While the surprise attack developed, Vodicka and the shaghun argued about why Tarlson was so confident.

Mocker learned why they had been waiting.

They were expecting another Siluro uprising.

But Tarlson should have anticipated that possibility. Had he rounded up the ringleaders?