"Denning, Troy - Forgotten Realms - Darkwell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

The Earthmother's followers were the Ffolk of the Moon-shae Isles, led by their druids. Chauntea's believers came from across the planes, and even in the Forgotten Realms were spread among the many nations of the world. The tenets of the Earthmother's faith held that nature was sacred, and maintaining the balance of all things became the druidi-cal creed. Followers of Chauntea held that the land should be farmed, that the growth provided by nature should be harnessed for the greater good of man.
Yet even despite their differences, the goddesses both were beings of health and growth, cherishing the plants and animals, working to protect the humans who held to their faith.
Now Chauntea sensed the power of the Earthmother waning. She also felt the looming presence of Bhaal. As that dark god moved into the power vacuum being created, Chauntea also began to move. Though she lacked Bhaal's awesome might and implacable evil, she was a being of great resource in her own right.
Now those resources would be tested.
25
LONG LIVE THE KING
For the first time, the wind seemed to be against them. It blustered from this direction and that in capricious gusts. To all sides stretched the sea, a gray mass of rolling swells, broken only by the foaming crests of the waves. The sky matched the water, a gray blanket of cold pressing heavily from horizon to horizon.
Overhead, the sail filled with air, spurring the ship across whitecaps and through deep troughs. Then the wind shifted, and the sail fell limp. The vessel slid crazily to the side, dropping between two rolling swells. A line drew taut as the boom swung across the stern. Two sailors dropped prone, while others hauled on a heavy rope until the sail once again billowed. The bow of the boat swung to port, angling across the waves on a slightly altered course.
Tristan Kendrick, heir to the throne of Corwell, stood in the bow of the Defiant and relished the cool spray against his face. It ran through his beard and soaked his heavy wool cloak. His feet were planted in a wide stance, and he swayed evenly with the rolling deck beneath his feet.
The ship lunged eagerly through the next swell, and the one after that. Each wave brought him and his companions closer to Corwell Firth and the castle on the little knoll, Caer Corwell.
Home.
Just a few short weeks ago, Tristan reflected, his first ocean voyage had carried him across this same water. Then, he had embarked on a mission of politics, to seek his coronation from the High King. Now he carried the crown of that
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same kingЧthe Crown of the IslesЧand he returned in triumph to his home. He knew he should be feeling joy and anticipation, but he could not.
He felt, rather than saw, a warm presence beside him and turned to see Robyn. Though she had slept little and eaten less during the past week, she had never looked so vibrant and alive. Her black hair, long and falling loosely around her shoulders and back, glowed with an ebony sheen, and her green eyes flashed with vitality. Her beauty increased every day, or so thought the king.
The druid joined him in the bow but avoided his eyes. He wanted to reach out, to put his arm around her, but he feared her rebuff.
"We'll be there soonЧno more than two days, three at the most." He tried to offer encouragement, sensing her despair.
"But what will we find when we get there? What if we're too late?"
"We won't be! And whatever we find, we can best it! Ibgether, with my sword and your faith, we can rid Gwyn-neth of any shade of evil!"
"I hope so." Robyn leaned against him and he held her, sensing the deep and spiritual fear that haunted her. He felt a vague sense of guilt for the time they had remained on the island of Callidyrr. He had known that she wanted to leave immediately following the defeat of the High King. Robyn feared deeply for the fate of her fellow druids, imprisoned as stone statues around the scene of their final battle.
Yet he could not have left then. And she had chosen to remain with him, rather than embark for home alone or with Lord Pontswain, who had taken the first available ship back to Corwell.
"I'm glad you stayed with me," he said. "I can't imagine facing the kingship without you beside me."
He thought of the many problems he had solved during his week in Callidyrr. He had settled an old dispute on fishing rights between the cantrevs of Llewellyn and Kythyss. He had pardoned the bandits of Dernail Forest, good men and women who had been forced to become outlaws because of the injustices of the former king. He had dis-
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banded the few remaining mercenaries of the king's private army, the Scarlet Guard. The battles of the Ffolk, he had declared, would from now on be fought by the Ffolk.
With his ascension to the throne had come the discovery of the vast surplus in the High King's treasury, piles of silver coins, and some gold, which he had been able to return to the overtaxed lords of the land. This act alone would have done much to assure his popularity with the lords, but his wisdom and good judgment in settling the other disputes had insured their loyalty to his name,
"I'm glad I stayed, too," she sighed. "I know it was important to you, and to all the isles. You will make a splendid king.
"But all the while, I could not help wondering about the druids. Are they suffering? Are they dead? I wish I could have been both places at once. I know I cannot rest easily until I have seen evil excised from Myrloch Vale!"
Suddenly Tristan stiffened, lifting himself to the balls of his feet to peer in the distance. He squinted against the spray, and saw it again: a flash of crimson against the all-encompassing gray of sea and sky.
Robyn sensed his change in mood, and she followed his gaze, staring a few degrees to starboard of the bow. A foot shorter than the young king, she could not see what had alarmed him.
"Northmen," he grunted, pointing. She saw the flicker of color now. It could only be the square sail of a raiding long-ship, and it was facing them.
"Keep an eye on it. I'll inform the captain." Turning and sprinting like a seasoned sailor down the pitching deck, the new High King of the Moonshaes barked a warning to the laboring crewmen.
Robyn turned back to the south as the longship drew closer. She could now make out a second sail beside the first, veering to the side. The sleek vessels spread apart to block the Defiants path at either side. Some voice inside her said that she should be afraid, that these were dangerous and bloodthirsty foes. But instead she felt only a quiet anger as she faced another obstacle on the road to rescue Genna
*28
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Moonsinger, the Great Druid of all the Moonshaes.
But this was an obstacle she could counter.
By the time Tristan returned to the bow, she had unlashed her staff from its mount on the gunwale. Captain Dans-forth, the taciturn master of the Defiant, regarded the approaching vessels through his long spying tube. The crew, two dozen steadfast Ffolk of Callidyrr, turned as a man to regard the raiders but maintained the course and sail of the Defiant without a hitch.
She was called the stoutest vessel, with the ablest crew, among the four kingdoms of the Ffolk. The proof had come when they sailed into the late stages of an autumn gale that would have kept any other vessel of the Ffolk in port. Racing through the Sea of Moonshae around the northern tip of Gwynneth, the Defiant had coursed through the Strait of Oman. Now they sailed south toward Corwell itself.
These northmen were obviously returning homeЧit was already later than the usual raiding seasonЧbut they would doubtless welcome one last prize before making port for the winter.
"The standard of Norland" grunted Dansforth. "That one, to starboard, would be the king's own vessel."
"Grunnarch the Red. I have fought him before," mused Tristan.
"So the stories say. And bested him." The captain looked at the king with just a hint of amusement in his gray eyes. Dansforth was not yet middle-aged, though his hair and beard had silvered until they matched his eyes. Yet he had an enigmatic manner of speaking that reminded Tristan of an old, but very smug, man.
"Can we aher course?" asked Robyn quickly. "Tb there?" She pointed straight toward one of the advancing longships.
"Why?" Dansforth was mildly incredulous. "They're cutting too wide. They underestimate our speed, I think. With a little luck, we can dash between them."
"We wont need luck if you can get close to one of those ships." Robyn spoke quietly, but there was a hint of great power in her voice.
"Do as she says," said Tristan.
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"Very well," Dansforth said with a shrug. He stepped to the steersman, standing at the huge wheel amidships, and ordered the change in course. Then he hurried back to the bow as the Defiant heeled over with the turn.
The trio was joined by another pair. One was Tristan's friend Daryth, the swarthy, handsome Calishite who had become the king's chief adviser. Now he carried his gleaming scimitar lightly in his hand, awaiting battle with a half-smile across his dark brown face. The other was the halfling, Pawldo of Lowhill, a middle-aged adventurer whose wrinkled face and graying hair belied his vitality.