"David Drake - Belisarius 4 - Fortune's Stroke" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Enemy of My Enemy:
Terra Nova
(with Ben Ohlander)

Armageddon
(edited with Billie Sue Mosiman)
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BAEN BOOKS by ERIC FLINT

Mother of Demons
1632




Prologue
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The best steel in the world was made in India. That steel had saved his life.

He stared at a drop of blood working its way down the blade. Slowly, slowly. The blood which covered
that fine steel was already drying in the sun. Even as he watched, the last still-liquid drop came to a halt
and began hardening.

He had no idea how long he had been watching the blood dry. Hours, it seemed. Hours spent staring at
a sword because he was too exhausted to do anything else.

But some quiet, lurking part of his battle-hardened mind told him it had only been minutes. Minutes only,
and not so many of those.

He was exhausted. In mind, perhaps, even more than in body.

In a life filled with war since his boyhood, this battle had been the most bitter. Even his famous contest
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against one of India's legends, fought many years before, did not compare. That, too, had been a day
filled with exhaustion, struggle, and fear. But it had been a single combat, not this tornado of mass melee.
And there had been no rage in it, no murderous bile. Deadly purpose, yesтАФin his opponent as much as
in himself. But there had been glory, too, and the exultation of knowing thatтАФwhichever of them
triumphedтАФboth their names would ring down through India's ages.