"Kerr,.Katharine.-.Deverry.03.-.Bristling.Wood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

an edge, loading wagons and trekking east to the grasslands that
the Hordes despised. Rinbaladelan fought out the winter, then fell
in the spring. More refugees came east, carrying tales the more
horrible because so common. Every clan had had its women
raped, its children killed and eaten, its houses burned down around
those too weak to flee. Everyone had seen a temple defiled, an
aqueduct mindlessly toppled, a farm looted then burned instead of
appropriated for some good use. All summer, refugees trickled
inЧand starved. They were settled folk, unused to hunting except
for sport. When they tried to plant their hoarded seed grains, the
harsh grasslands gave them only stunted crops. Yet in a way few
cared whether they lived another winter or not, because they were
expecting that the enemy would soon follow them east. Some fled
into the forests to seek refuge among the primitive tribes; a few
reached what later became Eldidd; most stayed, waiting for the
end.

But the Hordes never came. Slowly the People learned to survive
by living off their flocks and herds while they explored what the
grasslands had to offer them. They ate thingsЧand still didЧthat
would have made the princes of the Vale of Roses vomit; lizards
and snakes, the entrails of deer and antelope as well as the fine
meat, roots and tubers grubbed out wherever they grew. They
learned to dry horse dung to supplement the meager firewood;
they abandoned the wagons that left deep ruts in the grassland that
now fed them in its own way. They boiled fish heads for glues and
used tendons for bowstrings as they moved constantly from one
foraging ground to another. Not only did they survive, but children
were born, replacing those killed in flash floods and hunting
accidents.

Finally, thirty-two years after the Burning, the last of the Seven
Kings, Ranadar of the High Mountain, found his people again. With
the last six archers of the Royal Guard he rode into an alardan one
spring and told how he and his men had lived among the hills like
bandits, taking what vengeance they could for their fallen country
and begging the gods to send more. Now the gods had listened to
their grief. While the Hordes could conquer cities, they had no idea
how to rebuild them. They lived in rough huts among the ruins and
tried to plant land theyТd poisoned. Although every ugly member of
them wore looted jewels, they let the sewers fill with muck while
they fought over the dwindling spoils. Plague had broken out
among them, diseases of several different kinds, all deadly and
swift. When he spoke of the dying of the Hordes, Ranadar howled
aloud with laughter like a madman, and the People laughed with
him.

For a long time there was talk of a return, of letting the plagues do
their work, then slaughtering the last of the Hordes and taking back
the shattered kingdom. For two hundred years, until RanadarТs