"Raymond E. Feist - Serpentwar 1 - Shadow of a Dark Queen2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

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.
For seventeen years he had fought the invaders as they had
driven his hordes back to the heartland of the Empire of
Grass.


When he had taken the sword of the Sha-shahan while
still a youth, warriors of Saaur had passed in review, filling
the ancient stone causeway that spanned the Takador
Narrows, the channel connecting the Takador Sea and the
Castak Ocean. One hundred riders - a century - side by side,
rode past, one hundred centuries to a jatar: ten thousand
warriors. Ten jatar to a host, and ten host to a horde. At the
height of his power, seven hordes answered Jarwa's battle
horns, seven million warriors. Always on the move, their
horses grazed the Empire of Grass, while children grew to
adulthood playing and fighting among the ancient wagons
and tents of the Saaur, stretching from the city of Cibul to
the farthest frontier, ten thousand miles distant; it was an
empire so vast that teams of horses and riders, never
stopping their gallop, would take a full turning of the moon
and half again to ride from the capital to the frontier, twice
that from one border to the other.


Each season, one horde rested near the capital, while the
others moved along the frontiers of the great nation,
ensuring the peace by conquering all who refused tribute.
Along the shores of the nine great oceans, a thousand
cities sent food, riches, and slaves to the court of the
Shashahan. And once a ten-year, the champions of the
seven hordes gathered for the great games at Cibul, ancient
capital of the Empire of Grass. Over the span of centuries,
the Saaur had gathered all of Shila under the Shashahan's
banner, all but the most distant nations on the far side of
the world. It was Jarwa's dream to be the Shashahan who at
last realized the dream of his ancestors, to bring the last city
into the Empire and rule the entire world.


Four great cities had fallen to Jarwa's hordes, and another
five had surrendered without a struggle, leaving fewer than
a dozen outside the Empire. Then the riders of the Patha