"Raymond E. Feist - Riftwar Legends - Murder In LaMut" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

ONE
Night

It was a dark and stormy night.

That was fine with Durine.

Not that the goddess Killian, whose province was the weather, was asking his
opinion. Nor were any of the other gods - or any mortals - for that matter.

In more than twenty years of a soldier's life, both fealty-bound and
mercenary - as well as during the dimly-remembered time before he took blade
and bow in hand - few of those in charge of anything had asked Durine's
opinions before making their decisions.

And that was fine with him, too. The good thing about a soldier's life was
that you could concentrate on the small but important decisions, like where to
put the point of your sword next, and leave the big decisions to others.

Anyway, there was no point in objecting: complaining didn't make it any
warmer, griping didn't stop the sleet from pelting down, bitching didn't stop
the ice from clinging to his increasingly heavy sailcloth overcoat as he made
his way, half-blinded, down the muddy street.

Mud.

Mud seemed to go with LaMut the way salt seemed to go with fish.

But that was just fine with Durine, too. Wading through this half-frozen mud
was just part of the trade, and at least here and now it was just this vile
slush, not the hideous sort of mud made from soil mixing with dying men's
blood and shit. Now, the sight and particularly the smell of that kind of mud
could make even Durine gag, and he had seen more than enough of it in his
time.

What wasn't fine with him was the cold. It was still too damn cold. His toes
had ceased to feel the cold and the pain, which wasn't good.

Locals were talking about the 'thaw', something they apparently expected any
day now that Midwinter was behind them. Durine glanced up at the sleet
smacking him in the face, and decided that this was an odd sort of thaw. To
his way of thinking, there was far too damn much of this half-frozen stuff
falling from the sky for a reasonable thaw, or even an unreasonable one. Yes,
before the current storm they had had three days of clear skies, but there was
no change in the air; it was still too damn wet, and too damn cold.

Too cold to fight, perhaps?

Well, yes, maybe, in the view of the Bugs and the Tsurani, and that was a
good thing. They had fought Tsurani and goblins and Bugs in the north, and