"Feist, Raymond E - The Riftwar Legacy 02 - Krondor- The Assassins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

question to save the lowest soldier under his command.

His gaze went from wagon to wagon, as if somehow willing himself to see
the wounded men inside, as if he could communicate to them his sense of
gratitude for a job well done. Those closest to Arutha knew he paid a
silent price, pain kept within, for each injury done a man who served
Krondor and the Kingdom.

Arutha pushed aside his regrets and considered the victory. The enemy
had been in full retreat for two days, a relatively small force of dark
elves. A much larger force had been prevented from reaching the Dimwood
when a rift machine had been destroyed by Arutha s two squires, James
and Locklear. It had cost the life of a magician named Patrus, but his
sacrifice had allowed the invaders to fall prey to their own internal
conflicts. Delekhan, the would-be conqueror, had died beside Gorath, a
moredhel chieftain who had proven as honorable and worthy a being as
Arutha had ever met, while they struggled to seize control of the
Lifestone. Arutha cursed the existence of that mysterious and ancient
artifact under the abandoned city of Sethanon, and wondered if its
mystery would ever be understood, its danger removed, in his lifetime.

Delekhan's son Moraeulf had died from a dagger thrust home by Narab,
once an ally of Delekhan. As agreed to by Narab, the retreating moredhel
weren't being harassed by Kingdom forces as long as they were heading
straight north. Orders had been dispatched to allow the moredhel safe
passage home as long as they kept moving.

2 The Kingdom forces in the Dimwood were now dispersing to their various
garrisons, the majority returning to the west, and some heading back
north to the border baronies. They would start moving later in the
morning. The previously secret garrison north of Sethanon would be moved
to another location and reprovisioned.

Sunlight began to bathe Arutha as the morning mist burned off, leaving
only the smoke and dust to cloud the air. The day was already growing
hot, and the cold of the previous winter was fading from memory. Arutha
kept his distress deep inside as he considered the latest assault upon
the tranquillity of his Kingdom.

Arutha had taken the Tsurani magicians at face value after the end of
the Riftwar. For nearly ten years they had been free to come and go
between worlds, via several magic rifts. And now he felt a profound
sense of betrayal. He fully understood the rationale that had driven
Makala, a Tsurani Great One, to attempt to seize the Lifestone at
Sethanon, the belief that the Kingdom possessed a great weapon of
destruction, some engine of power that would give predominance in war to
whoever held it. Had he been in Makala s place, with the same
suspicions, he might have acted in the same way. But even so, he could
not trust the Tsurani to be loose in the Kingdom, and that meant an end
to almost a decade of trade and exchange. Arutha pushed aside worry as