"Feist,.Raymond.E.-.Serpentwar.1.-.Shadow.Of.A.Dark.Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

When the grasp on the bow was decision,
And arrow and hand and eye were one;
When the Pleasures, like waves to a swimmer,
Came heaving for rapture ahead, Invoke
them, they dwindle, they glimmer
As lights over mounds of the dead.
- George Meredith
'Ode to Youth in Memory'



PROLOGUE

Deliverance

The drums thundered.
Warriors of the Saaur sang their battle chants, preparing
for the struggle to come. Tattered war banners hung
limply from bloodied lances as thick smoke shrouded the
sky from horizon to horizon. Green faces marked with
yellow and red paint watched the western skies, where
fires cast crimson and ocher light against the black
shroud of smoke, blocking the vanishing sun and the
familiar tapestry of the western evening stars.
Jarwa, Sha-shahan of the Seven Nations, Ruler of the
Empire of Grass, Lord of the Nine Oceans, could not tear
his gaze away from the destruction. All day he had
watched the great fires burn, and even across the vast
distance the howls of the victors and the cries of their
victims had carried through the afternoon. Winds that
once carried the sweet scent of flowers or the rich aroma
of spices from the market now carried the acrid stench of
charred wood and burned flesh. He knew without looking
that those behind were bracing for the coming trial,
resigned in their hearts that the battle was lost and the
race would die.
'My lord,' said Kaba, his Shieldbearer and life
companion.
Jarwa turned to his oldest friend and sayetched
faintly around his eyes. Kaba wmask
to all but Jarwa; the Sha-shaba
shaman reads a lore scroll. '
'The Pantathian is here.'

Jarwa nodded, but he remained motionless. Powerful
hands closed in frustration over the hilt of his battlesword,
Tual-masok - Blood Drinker in the ancient tongue - far more
a symbol of office than the crown he had worn only on rare
state occasions. He pushed its point down into the soil of
his beloved Tabar, the oldest nation on the world of Shila.