"Raymond E. Feist - Riftwar Legends - Honoured Enemy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)
enjoyed doing that, sneaking up and thus showing his skill, but Dennis didn't let his flash of
anger show.
'Brendan and his lads are finished,' Gregory whispered, 'but so are the Tsurani.'
Dennis said nothing. In spite of the snow vultures were already circling in. A mile or more back
he had noticed an absence of crows and ravens in the forest - inactive at night, they were usually
noisy and busy first thing in the morning - now he knew where they were ... enjoying a feast. A
vulture dropped down inside the smoking ruins of the fort and did not come back out, yet another
indicator that no one was left alive inside.
Could it be that the Tsurani had retreated at his approach?
No. If there were enough of them to take Brendan, they would stay and make a fight of it. The fall
of this stockade, along with the Tsurani holding Mad Wayne's to the north-west, made a hole twenty
miles wide in the picket chain that covered the northern front. Why take this crucial point only
to abandon it?
Ambush?
He looked back over his shoulder. Gregory was carefully looking about as well, and Dennis realized
that the Natalese scout had been scanning the woods to either side, looking for any indicators
that a trap was closing in.
Nothing. The crows and ravens were all down in the clearing, feasting, so there was none of their
noisy cackling in the forest. The other sounds were normal: the ice-covered trees creaking in the
breeze, the tinkling sound of now-light rain, the calls of other birds, and nothing else.
There was no ambush: it would already have been sprung.
Their eyes met and both had reached the same conclusion.
file:///F|/rah/Raymond%20E.%20Feist/Feist,%20Raymond%20E%20-%2...20-%20Honoured%20Enemy%20(with%20Forstchen,%20William%20R).txt
'Dark Brothers,' Dennis whispered.
Gregory nodded an agreement. 'Unless the last Tsurani and the last Kingdom soldier conspired to
kill one another at the same moment, that's my guess.'
What he saw started to fit together. A Tsurani force had besieged the fort. Ringing the edge of
the clearing he could see where the snow had been trampled down, and the torn remains of a dozen
of their tents littered the ground, bits of canvas sticking out of the icy slush. Their besieging
camp was at the edge of the forest less than a hundred yards away. Cooking pots still hung over
cold fire-pits, and a battle pennant leaned against a half-collapsed tent covered with ice. He
could even make out the spot where they had forged together their rough-hewn battering ram, for
the stump of the freshly-cut tree was coated with melting ice.
Perhaps the Tsurani had just taken the fort, or were venturing an attack when the Dark Brothers
had hit them, pressing right through to finish off Brendan's defenders as well. The pattern of
bodies indicated that the Tsurani had tried to break out, heading towards the south-west corner of
the clearing and the trail that ran straight back to territory they held. The piled-up knot of
dead were stopped a good hundred yards short of the main trail which headed into the heart of
Tsurani-held territory.
He stared at the trail for a moment, feeling a knot in his stomach. He had walked it often enough
as a boy; it was the trail back to his family's estates ... He forced his attention away from
bitter memory and back to the present.
With fifty men in Brendan's garrison the Tsurani would not have ventured an attack with less than
two hundred. If the Dark Brothers had come into the fray it meant there were at least three
hundred of them, maybe more. They didn't risk a fight like this unless the odds were on their
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