"Eddings, David - Malloreon 3 - Demon Lord Of Karanda" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

efficient than the Angarak military administration, By 4400, the
ascendancy of the bureaucracy was complete. By that time,
also, the title of Commander in Chief had been forgotten and
the ruler of both peoples was simply the Emperor of Mallorea.

To the sophisticated Melcenes, the worship of Torak remained
largely superficial. They accepted the forms out of expediency,
but the Grolims were never able to command the abject
submission to the Dragon God that had characterized the
Angaraks.

Then in 4850, Torak suddenly emerged from his eons of
seclusion to appear before the gates of Mal Zeth.

Wearing a steel mask to conceal his maimed face, he set aside
the Emperor and declared himself Kal Torak, King and God. He
immediately began mustering an enormous force to crush the
Kingdoms of the West and bring all the world under his
domination.

The mobilization that followed virtually stripped Mallorea of able-
bodied males. The Angaraks and Karands were marched north
to the land bridge, crossing to northernmost Gar og Nadrak, and
the Dalasians and Melcenes moved to where fleets had been
constructed to ferry them across the Sea of the East to
southern Cthol Murgos. The northern Malloreans joined with the
Nadraks, Thulls, and northern Murgos to strike toward the
Kingdoms of Drasnia and Algaria. The

second group of Malloreans joined with the southern Murgos and
were to march northwesterly. Torak meant to crush the West
between the two huge armies.

The southern forces, however, were caught in a freak storm that
swept off the Western Sea in the spring of 4875 and that buried
them alive in the worst blizzard of recorded history. When it
finally abated, the column was mired in fourteen-foot snowdrifts
that persisted until early summer. No theory has yet been able
to explain this storm, which was clearly not of natural origin.
Whatever the cause, the southern army perished. The few
survivors who struggled back to the East told tales of horror that
were truly unthinkable.

The northern force was also beset by various disasters, but
eventually laid siege to Vo Mimbre, where they were completely
routed by the combined armies of the West.

And there Torak was struck down by the power of Cthrag Yaska
(there called the Orb of Aldur) and lay in a coma that was to last
centuries, though his body was rescued and taken to a secret