"Troy Denning - Dark Sun - The Prism Pentad 05 - The Cerulean Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

Are half-breeds. They'll die with the others! the skeleton pronounced. I'll destroy them as soon as I
finish with the sorcerer-kings.
What of the Usurper? asked Khidar. Will you make him a sorcerer-king?
"Yes, I'll keep my promise, provided he honors the cause of the Pristine Tower, Rajaat answered.
And if he betrays us like Borys and the others?
My new champion will never do such a thing, the skeleton replied. After he witnesses the fate of the
other traitors, he will not dare.

Chapter One: Samarah
King Tithian of Tyr gnashed his teeth in vexation, accidentally crushing the sweet chadnut upon
which he had been sucking. The pulp filled his mouth with sour, peppery seeds that burned his tongue
and made his eyes water. He swallowed the kernels in a single gulp, hardly noticing the fiery aftertaste
that chased them down his throat.
"It's a whole damned fleet!" His old man's voice was hoarsened by the spicy chad seeds.
The hunch-shouldered king stood behind a low stone wall, peering through a curtain of swirling dust.
A thicket of masts had just appeared in Samarah's tiny harbor. While the thick haze prevented a reliable
ship count, Tithian could see so much billowing canvas that the flotilla looked like a cloud bank rolling in
from the Sea of Silt.
"Why should the fleet anger you, Mighty One?" asked Korla, clinging, as always, to Tithian's arm.
She was the fairest woman in the village, with ginger-colored hair and a sultry smile. That did not mean
she was beautiful. A life of heat and dust had framed her brown eyes with deep-etched crow's-feet, while
the sun had baked her skin until it was as creased and rough as a man's. Korla clasped the king's elbow
more tightly. "Your retainers wouldn't dare come for you with anything less than a dozen ships."
Tithian pulled free and straightened his shoulder satchel.
She frowned. "Soon you'll show me the wonders of Tyr-won't you?"
"No." Tithian fixed a disdainful glare on her weather-lined face.
"You can't leave me behind!" Korla objected. She glanced at the small crowd of villagers gathered
behind the wall. "After what I've been to you, the others will-"
"Quiet!" Tithian ordered. He waved a liver-spotted hand toward the harbor. "That isn't my fleet.
Rikus and Sadira will come by land, not ship."
Korla lowered her eyelids and sighed in relief.
"Don't be too relieved," said Riv, Korla's brawny husband and Samarah's headman.
An elf-tarek crossbreed, Riv had a square, big-boned face with a sloped forehead and a slender
nose. Standing so tall that the village wall rose only to his waist, he cut an imposing figure. Normally,
Tithian would have killed such a rival outright, but the headman had taken pains to make himself
indispensable as an intermediary to the villagers. Besides, the king enjoyed flaunting Korla's adultery in
front of him.
"Your reign as whore-queen will end soon enough." Riv glared at his wife.
"Why's that?" Tithian demanded, shuffling around Korla to confront the huge crossbreed, "Is there a
reason I should fear those ships?"
Riv shrugged. "Everyone should fear Balkan armadas. But I see no reason they should concern you
especially," he replied. He raised the thin lips of his domed muzzle, showing a mouthful of enormous
canine teeth. "I only meant that Korla shouldn't expect to go with you when the time comes. I've seen
enough of Athas to know she'd only be an embarrassment in the city."
"You may have seen the brothels of Balk, but you know nothing of life in Tyr's royal court," Korla
spat back. She regarded her husband suspiciously, then continued, "Now answer the king's question. We
haven't seen a Balkan fleet for more than a year. Why now?"
Riv sneered. "Ask your lover," he said. "He's the mindbender."
"I'll know the answer soon enough," Tithian said, thrusting his hand into his shoulder satchel. "And if
you ever again refer to me as anything but King or Mighty One, you'll beg for your death."