"Clayton Emery - Lost Empires 03 - Star of Cursrah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

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The 383rd Anniversary of the Great Arrival (-6048 DR)

"Go, djawal! Toss him over!"
"Break his wrist, Rosey! Pitch him through the roof!"
"Hit him, Tafir! Kick him where it counts!"
"Pull, Taf! No, push ... that way!"
Tafir, slim, fair-skinned, and blond, hung on grimly and strained until his face burned red. Atop a
slippery table, he grappled hand-to-hand against a soldier with knotty arms and a wicked grin. Both
men held wobbling, slopping flagons of corn beer in their free hands. Soldiers, cavalrymen, laborers,
merchants, servants, cooks, and washing women hooted and jeered and hurled bets. In a corner sat
Tafir's two friends, a young man with nearly black skin and tight curls in workman's white and a
young woman in the simple shift of a palace maid, who oddly wore a veil across her pointed nose.
The big sergeant, drunker than his companions, bore a strawberry birthmark on his cheek, which
earned him the nickname "Rosey." The birthmark crooked as Rosey grinned and taunted, "Is this the
best you can do, puppy?"
Struggling, beer mug wobbling, Tafir leaned into the sergeant's right arm. Surprisingly, the arm
bent until Tafir and Rosey stood nose to nose. The soldier laughed, his breath stinking of wine and
onions. Toying, the burly sergeant abruptly cocked his arm. Tafir had to crane on tiptoe or crack his
wrist.
Rosey smirked, "This is more fun that drilling on the parade ground, eh, djawal?"
"I couldтАФorder you toтАФquitтАФaskar!" Tafir gasped. Crushed in the soldier's paw, his hand
throbbed, but Tafir kept his feet atop the slippery table.
"Ha! You are a wet-nosed puppy. I'm not an askar, a common soldier, I'm a musar. See my red
braid? Twelve years I've served our thrice-blessed bakkal, may he live for an eternity." A table of
veterans with scars and eye patches and missing fingers whooped. A few wore the flat collar of a
citizen, but more went collarless, being mercenaries from other countries.
As an officer cadet, Tafir wore a yellow tunic and red kilt that glowed like bird's plumage against
the infantrymen's blues. Tafir grated, "Why don't weтАФsplit an amphoraтАФat a tableтАФnot on it!"
"Are you buying?" Chuckling, Rosey flexed an arm solid and brown as an oak branch. Tafir was
hurled backward. Beer from his mug cartwheeled across the ceiling, walls, and patrons. Tafir pitched
onto a table of stonemasons in dusty aprons, landing with a spectacular clatter and crash of crockery.
Wine splattered his new uniform. A mason flipped him off the table to thump in a tangle of arms and
legs.
Hopping off the table, Rosey shook his head in mock disgust and said, "Shame to waste good beer,
cadet, but officers are wasteful of everything, especially infantrymen's lives." Saluting, he drained his
mug to another round of cheers.
Tafir's two friends threaded the crowded tavern. The dark-skinned man was Gheqet, and the palace
maid was named Star. The two hauled Tafir to his feet.
"Yes, yes," he said. "I'm fine."
"Glad to hear it. We salute you!" boomed Rosey. Fast for such a big man, the sergeant snatched a
tankard off the masons' table and dumped it over Tafir's blond head.
Red wine splashed and his friends yelled. The veterans howled with glee, pounded their fists, and
called encouragement and names. Rosey crowed, "Now you've been baptized into the army!"
Tafir's teeth ground as he glared through dripping eyebrows. Everyone in the cellar laughed, but he
was surprised at the guffaws and titters coming from behind.
Gheqet held his ribs, pointed at the pink trickles, and, laughing, said, "Oh, T-Taf, you look so
delicious steeped in red wine! Like a v-verdach plucked from a p-pond for the pot!"
Star giggled so hard her veil drooped, and she fumbled to cover her dusky features. "That should