"Books - David Eddings - Belgarath the Sorcerer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

"Second, if we try to take down their walls with the Will and the Word,
we'll exhaust ourselves and we won't really accomplish all that
much."

"What does that leave us?" Belzedar asked him crossly. I'd picked up
a few hints from the others that Belzedar and Belmakor had argued
extensively when they had reached the lands of the Tolnedrans.
Belzedar, as second disciple, had assumed that he was in charge.
Belmakor, borrowing my authority, had contested that, and Beldin had
backed him.

Belzedar was mightily offended, I guess, and he seemed to be looking
for some way to get back at Belmakor for what he felt to be his
humiliation.

"We can't strike at Torak directly, you realize," he went on.

"The only way we can hurt him enough to force him to give back the Orb
is to hurt his people, and we won't be able to hurt them if they're
hiding behind those walls."

"The situation would seem to call for something mechanical then,
wouldn't you say, old chap?" Belmakor responded in his most urbanely
offhand tone.

"Mechanical?" Belzedar looked baffled.

"Something that doesn't bleed, old boy. Something that can reach out
from beyond the range of the Angarak spears and knock down those
walls."

"There isn't any such thing," Belzedar scoffed.

"Not yet, old chap, not yet, but I rather think Beldin and I can come
up with something that'll turn the trick."

I'd like to set the record straight at this point. All manner of
people have tried to take credit for the invention of siege engines.
The Alorns claim it; the Arends claim it; and the Malloreans certainly
claim it; but let's give credit where credit's due. It was my
brothers, Belmakor and Beldin, who built the first ones.

This is not to say that all of their machines worked the way they were
supposed to. Their first catapult flew all to pieces the first time
they tried to shoot it, and their mobile battering ram was an absolute
disaster, since they couldn't come up with a way to steer it. It
tended to wander away from its intended target and mindlessly bang on
unoffending trees--but I digress.

It was at that point in the discussion that our mystical brother,