"Dave Duncan - A Handful Of Men 2 - Upland Outlaws" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

"Long may it do so," her husband said.


With a muttered excuse, Rap rose to direct the coachman around the comer into Acacia Street. Sagorn's house had several entrances, but there was
no reason not to go to the public one tonight.


"Almost there," he said as he sat down.


"Well, you know the rest," the count said. "Shandie took up the sword and buckler and tried to summon the other wardens. Only Witch Grunth
answered the call."


"And very briefly!" Eigaze remarked disapprovingly.


"But her mere appearance was enough to show that the wardens acquiesce in his accession. Two wardens are enough. He's legally imperor now,
until his dying day."


Rap knew Grunth, also, if only from afar. She was reasonably powerful, but indolent, like most trolls. With a painful sense of time passing, he
realized that the big woman had reigned for eighteen years now. She had replaced the odious Zinixo.


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 Upland Outlaws



And always he felt that nagging hunch that Zinixo was in some way responsible for the incorporate evil now looming over the world. Sorcerers'
hunches tended to have sharp edges.


Neither Raspnex nor Grunth seemed the type of person to overthrow the Protocol and plunge the world into chaos. Olybino, now, was a dimwitted,
posturing idiot. The warlock of the east might get himself involved in almost anything. And Lith'rian of the south was an elf and therefore totally
unpredictable by any normal logic. Why had those two not appeared in the Rotunda to hail the new imperor?


Peering along Acacia Street, Rap detected a group of three carriages standing in the snow, guarded by a score or so of Hussars. The horses whinnied
greetings to one another. The coachman could probably make out the light of the lanterns now. What would the neighbors be thinking of this
invasion? Sagorn and his associates would be furious at having their privacy disturbed.


"I wish I could remember the dwarf's final words exactly," Ionfeu said. "I may not have heard them correctly, even. The Rotunda echoes so much
when it isn't crowded, and he has a very low-pitched voice."