"McKenna,.Juliet.E.-.Einarinn.02.-.Swordsman's.Oath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Caladhrian I know best is the coastal dialect and this far up country could well
confuse things further.
УThank you,Ф I said, belatedly recalling why Caladhrian was a byword for lackwit
back home. This lad couldnТt poke a dead dog with a sharp stick.
Once off the bridge, I spurred the horse clear of the peasants milling about. A
knot of lime-washed, timber-framed houses with wood-shingled roofs clustered
around the meeting of the roads; it could have been any small hamlet between the
ocean coast and western Ensaimin, the most distant province, where the EmpireТs
grip had never really taken hold and slipped loose first. I looked vainly for
way-stones that might give me some heading and finally drew my lucky rune-stick
from my pocket. I rolled it between my palms, the Drum came out upright and I
headed North on that result.
╗дддл
The house of Viltred Sern,
west of Cote in the Clay,
Caladhria,
9th of Aft-Spring
A sturdily built hut of logs and wooden shingles stood under a shallow crag in a
forest clearing, a knot of figures gathered on the smooth turf before it. Their
prisoner was an old man, withered with age, hair and beard frosted with white.
Bound on his back to a freshly felled log, twigs and splinters pierced him not
by deliberate design but through simple carelessness. Manacles were tight around
wrists blackened with old blood, drawn by repeated writhing against the cruel
restraints. His captors stood in a loose half circle, black-clad in leather and
metal, faces flat with disinterest, men with unvarying blond hair and stocky
builds. Their leader stood at the head of the hapless victim, calm as his irons
reheated in the small wood fire. The smoke rose and coiled away into the clear
blue sky, the first leaves of the new season green and fresh on the trees. Blood
dripped slowly from ruined hands, fingers broken, jagged edges of bone jutting
through skin, nails ripped out with calculated brutality. The victimТs ribs
heaved in sudden spasm, skin stark white through the smears of blood as his
chest fluttered like a half-killed bird and abruptly stilled. Gory pits where
eyes should have been wept tears of anguished blood.
УThatТs a grim prospect, I grant you, Viltred.Ф The speaker swallowed hard as he
stared at this stark picture. It hovered within a gleaming diamond hanging from
the upper point of a crescent of hammered copper set before him on the table, a
tongue of flame licking upwards from a candle at the bottom of the arc.
УWhen did you first see this fate in your augury spell?Ф He cleared his throat
and looked around the homely clutter of the small cabin as if to reassure
himself the vision of anguish and malice was no more than foul illusion.
УFour days past,Ф the old wizard grunted, face dour as he looked at the image of
his agonized death, scant paces from his own threshold. УSo what do you make of
it, Shivvalan? What has this to do with you turning up after the mighty wizards
of Hadrumal have ignored me for close on a generation, believing me to be either
liar or fool? When I was AzazirТs apprentice and we made our voyage, no one
believed us when we said we had found islands in the far Ocean.Ф He gestured
toward the gem with one gnarled hand. УIslands where a race of fair-haired men
lived, as like to these as hounds bred from the same pack. Now you come to tell
me that the wise and noble wizards of Hadrumal have discovered these islands for
themselves and deign to believe me at last. Is it coincidence that I now see