"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 03 - Skybowl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

"No."
"Well, you got a pretty nasty crack on the head today.
Melanie Rawn
Your memory may play tricks for a while. Anyway, we heard hoofbeats, and you tried some whistle or other, and your stallion came trotting upЧwell, limping, actually. You took the stone from his hoof, andЧyou really don't remember?"
"None of it. But I'm glad you didn't have to do all the work yourself. I presume we got on the horse and started riding?"
"I doubt you'd call it that." He grinned tiredly. "Your father'd be appalledЧor laugh himself senseless, one of the two, seeing us. And I'm babbling again, so I think I'll let you take the watch for a while."
''Yes, get some rest. Is there anything to eat?"
"Water and what was in your saddlebags." Evarin reached out and dragged the leather satchels over. "Dry clothes, too."
"Good. You lie down and sleep. I'll tend the Fire."
One moment Evarin's little blaze faded, and the next Andry called Fire to the same spot. The exchange was made smoothly; at least the injury to his head hadn't played foul with his gifts. The physician curled himself into another blanket and was asleep between one breath and the next.
Andry changed clothes, keeping the blanket like a shawl over his shoulders. It was bitterly cold, but his need for warmth had more to do with his guts than his skin.
"One will fall...."
But which? Oh, Goddess, which one?
He took hard bread and cheese from his saddlebags and went to the shelter doorway. He had no sense of time; it might have been anywhere from just after dusk to just before dawn. There must have been a clear sky earlier, or Evarin wouldn't have been able to go looking for Alasen, but now only faint, milky luminescence showed where the moons lurked behind the clouds. The unusable light mocked him.
Which would fall?
Not Radzyn. She said he had bought it with his belief. He remembered his dreams of death and destruction. She had shown him what might happen, and he had believed.
Tiglath, then? Evarin, on their long ride before the disaster of today, had told him all he knew of events. The Vellant'im had sailed to Tiglath, attacked, been repulsed, and departed. Tallain had died defending his castle, but the castle still stood. They had tried to take it once. They had failed. There was no reason to think they might attempt it again.
SKYBOWL 7
Not so with Goddess Keep. Seven ships were in Brochwell Bay even now. But Torien and the other devr'im Knew how to protect themselves. Prince Elsen of Grib was nding south with troops in answer to Torien's call for aid. The prince's sister Norian was on her way from Dragon's Rest with her husband, Edrel of River Ussh. They would provide more traditional defense than the spells used by the devr'im. With sudden wryness, he reminded himself that Jayachin was there, tooЧand nothing would prevent her from doing everything she could to uphold her own safety and her new position as unofficial athri of the refugees out-Mde the walls.
No, it would not be Goddess Keep.
Castle Crag was too remote for the Vellant'im to bother
*ith. But not, he realized with a start, for Chiana. It had always been her goal to rule there. Onee she realized that no Vellanti or sorcerous help would be coming to her at Rezeld Manor, she might decide to fulfill her lifelong ambition. Ostvel was at Swalekeep; Alasen was at Feruche; all their troops and the levies from the surrounding Veresch were with one or the other. There was no one left to defend Castle Crag. Would it be the one to fall?
Perhaps Swalekeep. No, the Vellant'im had tried once there, too, and failed. There was no military profit in the place, anyway.
That brought him to think of Balarat, up in Firon and equally irrelevant in terms of securing the continentЧwhich
* as obviously not the invaders' intention to begin with. Politically, however, the place presented dangers. Yarin of Snowcoves occupied the castle and held in custody the rightful prince's young heir. Regaining Balarat would present a pretty problem. But if it fell to Prince Lark, would that not be returning it to its rightful owner? This hardly constituted the kind of "fall" he felt sure the Goddess had meant.
Lastly, there was Skybowl. Something inside him quickened. A Desert castle. The Vellant'im had concentrated on
*uch; it was the next logical place to seize on the way to Feruche, where Pol was; it was a place of dragons.
If the choice was his, then it would be Skybowl. The sixth dnd last to fall. It could not be bought back from the Goddess' claim, not even with faith. A battle would be fought there. Men and women would die there. Skybowl would go the way of Stronghold.
8
Melanie Rawn
Andry knew all the castles of the Desert. He had visited them in childhood, before going first to High Kirat and his abbreviated service as Prince Davvi's squire and then to Goddess Keep, where he had always wanted to be. Stronghold was destroyed, as was Tuath; Radzyn still stood, though in enemy hands. Skybowl and Tiglath were held fast. And FerucheЧ
Of them all, next to Radzyn, Feruche was dearest to him. It was his dead twin brother's work, his legacy of beauty and strength. Sorin's very spirit lived within its walls and towers.
Stronghold and Tuath were gone. He had bought Radzyn's safety. Remagev was useless to the enemy, as was Tiglath now that the Merida were shattered. If it came to a choice between Skybowl and Feruche, there was no choice. Skybowl would be the sacrifice. The sixth and last offering to the Goddess.
No, that wasn't quite right. She was not so cruel, she had said so. Then why must another castle fall?
His head ached with it, his heart in turmoil. He gave it up, but for one clear decision: Feruche would not be the one to fall.
Faint sounds intruded on his thoughtsЧfamiliar sounds that should have blended into his consciousness unheeded. What had this barren land done to him, that noises heard from childhood caught his attention as the strange noises of the Desert did not? The ring of steel on stone, the call of the master masons, the grunts of the slavesЧall the sounds of the quarry that was his family's wealth. Good, solid granite with beautiful black graining, cut into smooth blocks to build homes and temples as far away as Kersau, the Island of the Blind....
But those sounds did not belong here. Wind, the occasional clatter of sandstone pebbles, the whisper of sand underfootЧthe Desert had its own music, and he had reluctantly learned to appreciate it. The cutting of stone, however, was as alien here as he.
Coming out of his tent, he fixed a cold gaze on the Flametower, all that could be seen of Stronghold from his camp. A single lifted finger brought a guard running, a horse
SKYBOWL 9
[rotting along behind. He mounted, galloped up the slope to the canyon, and bent his head as he went through the tunnel.
They were using picks on the cobbles of the outer court->ard. They were hacking away at the walls. They were gouging mortar from the foundation stones.
They stopped when they saw him, and knelt before him in their hundreds, proud of what they had accomplished.
He spoke very softly into the hush. "The priest?"
"In the gardens, O Most High," someone said to the broken cobbles.
"Bring him."
Someone else scrambled to his feet and, after bowing to him where he sat the stallion, raced for the inner gardens. A few of the others risked a glance upward. He ignored them.
The priest did not hurry. His strides were long with confidence, but he did not hurry. Nor did he bow. His voice was rich and smug.
"Since the Fire was chased away by your righteousness, lord, I have been thinking how best to drive the lingering evil from this place. After much prayer, the solution was vouchsafed me: bring the castle down around itself."
They had sent him another priest from Radzyn to replace the one who had met his demise at Skybowl. A very young priest. Only someone just out of Sanctuary would use a word like "vouchsafe."
Repressing a sigh, he let his gaze travel slowly from the gatehouse to the walls to the vast looming bulk of Stronghold. "That may take some time."