"E.D.Malloreon 01 - Guardians of the West" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

The leader of the Algar riders was a tall, hawk-faced man in leather clothing, with a raven-black scalp lock flowing behind him. When he reached the wagon, he reined in his horse.

"General Brendig," he said in a quiet voice, nodding to the Sendarian officer.

"My Lord Hettar," Brendig replied pleasantly.

"What are you doing here, Hettar?" Belgarath demanded.

Hettar's eyes went very wide. "I just brought a cattle herd across the mountains, Belgarath," he said innocently. "I'll be going back now and I thought you might like some company."

"How strange that you just happen to be here at this particular time."

"Isn't it, though?" Hettar looked at Brendig and winked.

"Are we playing games?" Belgarath asked the pair of them. "I don't need supervision and I definitely don't need a military escort every place I go. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

Durnik went to the wagon and took a coil.

"We all know that, Belgarath," Hettar said placatingly. He looked at the wagon. "It's nice to see you again, Polgara," he said pleasantly. Then he gave Durnik a rather sly look. "Married life agrees with you, my friend," he added. "I think you've put on a few pounds."

"I'd say thatyour wife has been adding a few extra spoonfuls to your plate as well." Durnik grinned at his friend.

"Is it starting to show?" Hettar asked.

Durnik nodded gravely. "Just a bit," he said.

Hettar made a rueful face and then gave Errand a peculiar little wink. Errand and Hettar had always got on well together, probably because neither of them felt any pressing need to fill up the silence with random conversation.

"I'll be leaving you now," Brendig said. "It's been a pleasant journey." He bowed to Polgara and nodded to Hettar. And then, with his detachment of troops jingling along behind him, he rode back toward Muros.

"I'm going to have words with Fulrach about this," Belgarath said darkly to Hettar, "and with your father, too."

"It's one of the prices of immortality, Belgarath," Hettar said blandly. "People tend to respect you -even when you'd rather they didn't. Shall we go?"

The mountains of eastern Sendaria were not so high as to make travel across them unpleasant. With the fierce-looking Algar clansmen riding both to the front and to the rear of the wagon, they traveled at an easy pace along the Great North Road through the deep green forests and beside mountain streams. At one point, when they had stopped to rest their horses, Durnik stepped down from the wagon and walked to the edge of the road to gaze speculatively at a deep pool at the foot of a small, churning waterfall.

"Are we in any particular hurry?" he asked Belgarath.

"Not really. Why?"

"I just thought that this might be a pleasant place to stop for our noon meal," the smith said artlessly.

Belgarath looked around. "If you want, I suppose it's all right."

"Good."

With that same slightly absent look on his face, Durnik went to the wagon and took a coil of thin, waxed cord from one of the bags. He carefully tied a hook decorated with some brightly colored yarn to one end of the cord and began looking about for a slender, springy sapling. Five minutes later he was standing on a boulder that jutted out into the pool, making long casts into the turbulent water just at the foot of the falls.

Errand drifted down to the edge of the stream to watch.