"03 - The Stricken Field 1.0." - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

"That's good. And should you, in your dallying around the court, hear of any
others voicing doubts, or criticism ... of course you will inform us at once."
Again Shandie put an arm around Umpily, a most unusual gesture for him. The
audience was over, they were heading for the door. "You will not speak of the
Almighty One." That sounded like a statement of fact. "And your old quarters at
Oak House are still as they were. We must find somewhere for you in the palace
itself-and I don't mean a dungeon! Now I shall let you go. If I know you, a
small repast will be uppermost in your thoughts after that unfortunate
misunderstanding."
With Shandie's familiar quiet chuckle, the imperor bade his old friend farewell.

2
Far to the north, near the eastern end of the Pondague Range, a galaxy of
twinkling campfires nestled within the Kribur Valley. The winter dark was
raucous with guttural male voices; the crackle of firewood blended with horses'
whinnies and the scream of dying captives.
The goblin horde under Death Bird had met up with the dwarvish army led by
General Karax. Now the leaders were planning a combined advance southward, into
the heart of the Impire. Four legions had been slaughtered in the last two weeks
and there were no more in the vicinity. The road to Hub was unguarded; the
capital lay naked and vulnerable as it had not been in centuries.
The dwarvish end of the combined camp was an untidy city of tents, but goblins
would sleep under the sky, spurning this puny southern cold. The junction
between the territories was an uneasy border, for the two races had never worked
together before and their ways were different. Goblins sneered at the mailed
dwarves and wondered aloud how fast those little legs could run. Dwarvish nerves
were strained by the noise of the goblins' barbarous amusement. The alliance was
fragile.
Near the frontier dividing the two forces, but within one of the dwarves' tents,
Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar was attending to her toilet with the aid of a bucket
of icy water. As she had lived in the same clothes for a week and had no clean
garments to replace them, she had little hope of doing much about her disgusting
condition. She could do nothing about her crushing exhaustion, either. She ached
as she had never ached in her life. At fourteen, Gath and Kadie were
withstanding the rigors of fatigue better than their mother, but all three were
close to the breaking point.
The tent was shabby and well patched, typically dwarvish. It smelled bad, but it
was roomy enough. The floor was muddy grass, and there was no bedding. At least
it was shelter-there would be snow tonight, likely-and there was even a dreary
little lantern, which qualified as a luxury by dwarvish standards.
"Mom!" Kadie squealed, peering at something she held pinched between her finger
and thumb. "What's this?"
"If it's what I think it is, darling, it's a louse."
Kadie screamed and hurled the offending parasite from her.
Then she burst into tears.
Stripped to the waist, her twin brother Gath shivered over another bucket. He
looked around briefly, before remembering that he was supposed to keep his back
turned.
"I've got fleas, as well," he remarked wryly. "Want to trade?"
Inos pulled her blouse closed, then enveloped her daughter in a tight hug. It