"Farland, David - Runelords 5 - Sons of the Oak (v1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farland David)

"What does he desire?" Shadoath asked.
Asgaroth showed her a vision of the world of the Runelords, a world healing after the fierce battles between the reavers and the Earth King, a world healing more than any world should, a world remaking itself in the shape of the One True World. "He has found it: a world that holds the memory of the master rune. The restoration is at hand!"
This caused Shadoath to rise. Once, so long ago that even the memory of the events had faded, so that now it was only a legend, the Dark Master had sought to seize control of all creation, had sought to bind all that existed to her. But her efforts had failed, the master rune itself was broken, and at that time, the One True World had shattered, splintering into a thousand thousand shadow worlds, each but a dim reflecмtion of the perfect world that had been.
With its destruction, the knowledge of the master rune was lost. Long had Asgaroth believed that reality was like a shattered crystal, each shadow world a shard of what had been. And one of those shards would still know the shape of the master rune.
Now, they had found that shard. And with the knowledge, the master rune could be rebuilt. The shadow worlds could be bound in one, all worlds colliding to make a perfect whole.
"He will seek to bind the worlds," Shadoath said.

Both Shadoath and Asgaroth had amassed a wealth of knowledge about magic. But neither knew the key to binding the worlds, to bringing forth the restoration.
"Then we must make sure that he is under our sway," Asмgaroth said. "After his birth, it will take time before he fully awakens to his power. The torch-bearer will be vulnerable."
"Then we should plant the seeds of his destruction now," Shadoath said. "You know what to do. Open a gate to his world, and I will bring my armies and join you."
Asgaroth smiled. Shadoath's resources were unbounded, her cunning unsurpassed, her cruelty inspired. Compared to her, the monster Scathain who had lost against the Earth King was but a worm. She had defeated the torch-bearer countless times before. She would defeat him one last time, in this the most desperate of contests. For this time it was not a single world that hung in the balance, it was all creation.
"An open gate awaits you," Asgaroth said, and he showed her a vision of a tiny village, burned to slag there among the woods. Chimneys of blackened stone were all mat was left of the houses. On a patch of ashes, among ash-covered bones, green flames glowed, creeping along the ground.
At that moment, the Earth King Gaborn Val Orden was taking a late meal. He set down his wine goblet and felt vaguely disturbed. He tilted his head as if listening. He felt
something A keen sense of danger that prickled the hair
on his scalp. But it was distant, in the future. And it was not targeted at a certain person. It was diffuse, and vast It was an evil large enough to lay waste to an entire world. ;

1
PERFECTING THE DARKNESS
No one can truly be called a man so long as he basks in the light of his father and mother. For until we are forced to stand alone, we never know the measure of strength that abides within us. And once a boy's father dies, he cannot be called a child any longer.
ЧThe Wizard Binnesman
This was the face of the Earth King: Skin the shade of dark green oak leaves, fading in the fall. Old man's hair of silver webs. A sorrowful face as full of furrows as the rind of a rotмting apple. And green-black eyes that were wild, hunted, like the eyes of a stag in the forest.
That is how Fallion, at the age of nine, remembered his faмther. A father he had not seen now for three years.
Strange then, that on an autumn evening as Fallion rode on a mountain track outside Castle Coorm with his younger brother Jaz and Hearthmaster Waggit beside him, and a small contingent of guards bristling front and back, the imмage of his father should intrude so heavily on Fallion's mind.
"Time to turn back," the point guard, a woman named Daymorra, said in a thick accent. "I smell evil."
She nodded to her right, up a hill where fences of stacked gray stones parceled out some cowherd's lands and formed a dam that held back the leaning pine forests of the mountains above. There, at the edge of the forest rose a pair of barrows, houses for the dead. In the swiftly falling darkness, the shadмows under the trees were black. And above the mountain hovered a haze, purple and green like a bruise in the sky. Strange lights flashed among the gauzy clouds, as if from distant lightning.

Fallion's personal guard, Sir Borenson, laughed and said, "You don't smell evil. It's a storm you smell."
Daymorra glanced back, troubled. She was a rugged woman from beyond Inkarra, with strange skin as gray as a tree trunk, black hair as fine as flax, and black eyes that glinted like lightning. She wore a simple outfit of ebony cotмton covered by a supple leather vest, with an ornate steel buckler that covered her belly, and a slave's collar of silver around her neck. Neither Fallion nor anyone that he knew had ever seen anyone like Daymorra until she had shown up at the castle six months earlier, sent by Fallion's father to join the guard.
"Humans may not smell evil," Daymorra said. "But I've garnered endowments of scent from a burr. They know the smell of evil. Something is there, in trees. Evil spirits, I think."
Fallion knew of men who had taken endowments of scent from dogs, but he had never even heard of a burr. Daymorra claimed to have taken endowments of hearing from bats, grace from hunting cats, and brawn from a wild boar. The skill to draw attributes from animals other than dogs was unмheard of in Fallion's land. If her story was true, hers was an exotic amalgam of powers.
Fallion rose up in his saddle, drew a deep breath, and tasted the air. It was so heavy with water, he could smell toмmorrow's morning dew, and the air was just cool enough that he could feel the first thrill of winter in it.
I do smell something, he thought. It was like an itch, an electric tingle, across the bridge of his cheek.
Daymorra eyed the barrows distrustfully and shivered. "One should give dead to fire or water, not leave evil spirits in the ground. We should turn back now."
"Not yet," Waggit argued. "We don't have far to go. There is a thing that the boys must see.
Daymorra's nostrils flared; she reined in her horse, as if thinking, men urged it ahead.
Fallion's younger brother Jaz had been watching the side

of the road for small animals. Fallion's first vivid memory had been of discovering a frogЧlike a bit of gray-green clay with a dark mask. It had hopped over his head and landed on a lilac leaf when he was only two. He'd thought it was a "squishy grasshopper," and felt the most amazing sense of wonder. After that, Fallion and his brother had become obмsessed with hunting for animalsЧwhether they be hedgeмhogs in the fields above the castle, or bats in the guard towers, or eels and crayfish in the moat. Jaz spoke up, "What is a burr?"
Daymorra frowned, men made big eyes and spoke as she rode. "A fawn, I think you call it. It is a forest fawn?"
Jaz shrugged and looked to Fallion for help. Though Falмlion was only a few months older man his brother, Jaz alмways looked to him for help. Fallion was both much larger than Jaz and more mature. But even Fallion had never heard of a "forest fawn."
Waggit answered, "Among the islands where Daymorra's people come from, the burr is a small antelopeЧnot much taller than a catЧthat lives in the jungle. It is a timid creaмture. It is said that die burr can taste the thoughts of those that hunt them. The fact that Daymorra was able not only to catch one, but to take an endowment from it is ... remarkмable."
They rode around a bend in silence, plunged below a thin cloud, and climbed again, only the thud of iron-shod hooves and the slithering sound of ring mail announcing them. To the left, me dull sun floated on the horizon like a molten bubble in a vat of ore. For the moment there were clouds above him and below, and Fallion pretended that he was ridмing through the clouds. The road ahead was barren, riddled with rocks and roots.
Fallion caught a movement out of the corner of his eye, glanced to his right, under me shadowed pines. A chill crept up his spine, and his senses came alive.
Somediing was under the shadows. Perhaps it had just been a raven flitting under the trees, black against black. But

Fallion saw Borenson reach down with his right hand and grasp his long-handled warhammer, whose metal head had a bird on it, with spikes sticking out like wings.
Fallion was young enough to hope that a bear hid in the woods, or a huge stag. Something better than the ground squirrels and cottontail rabbits he'd been spotting along the road.
They crested a small hill, overlooking a vale.
"Look there, my young princes," Waggit said soberly to both Fallion and Jaz. 'Tell me what you see."
A cottage squatted below, a tidy home with a freshly thatched roof, surrounded by ruby-colored roses and butterмfly bushes. Birds flitted everywhereЧyellow-headed bee eaters hovering and diving around the bushes.