"Dave Duncan - Tales of King's Blades 2 - Lord of The Firelands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

left a trail of stunned and mangled courtiers
in the hedges and ditches.
There went one ... and another ... Ouch!--a
bad one. No matter, young bones could be
repaired by conjuration and the mounts seemed to be
surviving. Unrepentant, Master of Horse
rode forward to rescue the casualties. On this
blustery spring afternoon in the year 357, the moor
had masked its ancient menace behind a
deceptive glow of friendship, soft and green and
smelling of clover. The sky was unbelievably
blue. Broom was bursting into yellow glory.
There could be few things finer in all creation than
having a reasonably good mount and an excuse
to ride it flat out. As the race faded into the
distance, he could see that the piebald mare was going
to win, thanks more to her own abilities than the
skills of her rider, Candidate Bandit.

Ten minutes after the sighting, the winner thundered in
through the gate and yelled out the news to the first people he
saw, who happened to be a group of fuzzies
engaged in rapier drill. "The King is
coming!"
In seconds the word was everywhere, or almost
everywhere. The candidates--sopranos,
beansprouts, beardless, fuzzies, and especially
the exalted seniors who wore swords--all
reacted with indrawn breath and sudden internal
tenseness, but even the instructors narrowed their
eyes and pursed their lips. The Masters of
Sabers and Rapiers heard it on the fencing
ground, Master Armorer in the Forge. Master of
Rituals got the word in a turret room, where
he was studying arcane spells, and Master of
Archives in a cellar, where he was packing
ancient records into fireproof chests. All of
them paused to ponder what else they need do
to prepare for a royal visit. The answer,
in all cases, was absolutely nothing. They were
more than ready, because it had been seven months
since Ambrose had come to the school. In all that
time, only one candidate had been promoted
to Blade. The question now--of especial interest to the
seniors--was: How many would the King harvest this
time?
The lowest of the low was the Brat, who was thirteen
years old and had been admitted to Ironhall
only two days previously. On the theory that a
man can get used to anything, he had concluded that this