"Kushner,.Donn.-.A.Book.DragonUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

troubles had come.

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Signs of this appeared everywhere. Mounted messengers
hurried along the roads, gazing keenly on either side. Wagons
travelled in groups, guarded by bands of archers. Men-at-
arms skirmished in the forest glades; in open clearings mounted
knights rode at each other with sword and lance. Secret bands
of dark, ragged men attacked any unprotected cottages. Soon
the peasants entered the castle walls, driving their herds before
them. The deer in the forest, anxious and sharp-eared, fled at
the slightest sound. Nonesuch found little to eat in forest or
field, at best a few scrawny, quarrelsome goats, abandoned by
their masters.

The dragon did not know, of course, that the year was
1460 and that these events were minor consequences of a civil
war, the War of the Roses, between the great houses of York
and Lancaster, whose emblems contained white and red roses,
respectively. Indeed, he would have found it difficult to under-
stand a civil war, or any war. As long as anyone could
remember, dragons had settled disputes by formal duels, super-
vised by wise elders. Such contests were bloody but very
seldom fatalЧthe judges stopped them first, and their verdict
was never challenged. Thus, the thought of killing each other
was almost completely foreign to dragons. (Nonesuch's grand-
mother said, "What with lightning, and rockfalls, and evil
spells, and bad food, and knights who have to prove them-
selves, why should we have to kill dragons too?")

But humans had other practices, as he was now to witness.
The air around the castle walls grew stale with waiting. An
army marched up. A beautiful array of tents appeared, and the
siege began: assaults on the walls with high ladders; rolling
towers full of armed men; attempts to mine beneath the walls

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themselves. All were driven back. Trebuchets hurled boulders
that bounced off the sturdy walls. Nonesuch dined well on the
invaders' sheep when their keepers became distracted watching
the progress of the siege.

But when the cannon arrived, even Nonesuch forgot the
sheep to watch it. It was as thick through the middle as a tall
oak, all bumpy with castings of gods and dragons and battle
scenes. It lay in a wagon, drawn by six tall, stout horses with
bored, heavy-lidded eyes. The castle's defenders lined the
walls to watch it come and cheered when it paraded past, just