"Daley,.Brian.-.Coramonde.1.-.Doomfarers.Of.Coramonde" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daley Brian)

THE DOOMFARERS OF CORAMONDE

some transient burst of outrage. But before Yardiff Bey he held his
peace.

"Hightower are you," the sorcerer agreed in that voice so remote
from the merely mortal, "who spurns the decisions of the Court
when he so chooses. High-tower who withholds levies, contending
that he mounts a more perilous watch than the rest of Coramonde.
Sanctimonious Hightower, poised and ready against imaginary
icemen."

" 'Imaginary,' you say?" the Duke shot back. "Lies are your nature
as venom is a snake's, I say. Send any doubters out with me to
rural villages to see. Something malignant is growing in
Coramonde, and it wears many faces. I have seen it, I have fought
it. Still it grows. Last month came a call to me from her people and
I went, to find the mistress of a great estate torturing children.
She'd been extracting their spleen and marrow for love potions.
She had once been a friend, but I knew her no more and I slew her
there myself." The Duke's palm brushed once, uneasily, across the
hilt of his sword.

Fania, recovered now that Bey had intervened, soothed, "We are
not unaware of these things. It has become clear to us that such
incidents come at the instigation of Freegate, the so-called
independent city east of the Keel of Heaven. Even now are leaders
gathered in Earthf ast to discuss it, and legion musters will soon
follow, for a war of defense against Freegate. We ask Hightower to
look to nis own array and prepare to see the crimson tiger into
battle." She waved her hand at the royal standard and smiled a
lovely, truthless smile, finishing sweetly, "As he has done so
bravely and so well in the past."

But the Duke was having none of that, not from anyone fair or
anyone fey. "These things I talked about are not come from
Freegate but from Coramonde herself. Freegate has always been
circumspect of us and everyone here knows it. To blame them is a
lie."

A risky accusation to say the least, Springbuck reflected.
Hightower was ever the brave warrior but never the diffident
diplomat. Speaking so to Fania was a far different thing from
saying the same to Yardiff Bey.

From the ranks of the courtiers Ч as if on cue

Of Deaths, Of Departure 9

markЧstepped an elegant man in plum and amber, whom