"Alan Dean Foster - Kingdoms of Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

thoroughfares across the river, eight were narrow or fragile enough to be held by small squadrons of
determined defenders. Equipped with cannon, they could sweep any attacker, no matter how determined
or accomplished, into the swift current below.

The remaining four bridges required more attention. Broad of aspect and fashioned from solid stone,
they commanded the main approaches to the city and the plains that lay beyond. All four had to be held.
Should even one be captured, an attacking enemy would acquire a direct route into the city. Beyond the
bridges lay the town itself, circuitous of street and convoluted of thoroughfare, and beyond it the castle,
whose strong high walls were well defended. Goughfree and his colleagues felt confident it could be held
against any assailant. But withdrawing into the castle would mean sacrificing the city and its treasures to
the ravages of the enemy. The champions of the Gowdlands had no intention of allowing the prosperous
metropolis to crumble beneath the boots of the Totumakk.

As for the supposed malignant powers of this Khaxan Mundurucu, the defenders of the Gowdlands
could count among their number several powerful virtuosos of the mystic arts. Having consulted with the
hastily constituted council of war, Goughfree had come away convinced of the ability of these several
mages and wizards to deal with this Mundurucu individual, whose arrogant reputation must perforce
exceed whatever arcane abilities he might actually possess. Armies would repulse any military assault by
the Totumakk, while the necromancers of the Gowdlands would repel any sorcerous affront to the city's
defenses.

Thus reassured, Goughfree spent the days supervising the strengthening of the city's fortifications,
concentrating on the vital bridges while not neglecting the castle or the inner wards, until he was of the
opinion that, seeing the strength of Kyll-Bar-Bennid, the Totumakk might well decide it was not in their
interest to hurl themselves uselessly against it.

Languorous clouds filled the sky, and the air was suffused with the dank, clinging humidity of Final
Summer when scouts at last brought word of the Horde's approach. Their confirming words were not
needed, since from the topmost castle heights the defenders of the city had been able to observe the
expanding glow of burning fields and homes for many days now. When finally the killing teams of the
Horde began to emerge from the woods on the far side of the river, the soldiers and citizens of
Kyll-Bar-Bennid had their first glimpse of those who threatened their destruction.

Even on a small scale, the sight was dauntingly horrific. Bent and twisted, gap-toothed and
cloven-skulled, cleanshaven or eruptive of beard, there was not a man or woman among the amassing
Horde who did not reek of corruption and decay. They were a vileness upon the land--and that was only
the humans among them. At least half the Horde was made up of--other things.

There were creatures with curving, slanted eyes and narrow, heronlike beaks as long as a man's arm.
Black-furred bipeds reptilian of aspect boasted oval mouths fringed with long hairs that might have been
borrowed from fleshy catfish, while stockier companions carried pikes and lances on shoulders hunched
unnaturally forward. There were massive red-furred hulks with warty, leprous countenances and eyes
devoid of lids, who gazed upon the world with unblinking ferocity. Smaller fighters in this army of the
damned hopped or lurched or shambled their way into camps that sprang up around central fires, above
which roasted and dripped huge chunks of meat whose origins the saner among the city's defenders
made a conscious effort not to identify.

Officers in gleaming black armor moved among their diabolic troops like sharks through schools of shad.
Using whips and prods, they doled out grisly imprecations and sharp blows in equal measure. None of
the Horde rebelled against this harsh treatment. None dared, and there were those truly sick ones who