"Up the Wall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

"Say, 0 Highest of the High Chiefs," the wizard babbled, "Say what this, your humblest servant and counselor, shall name you before the tribe! Speak, and I shall fly swifter than the hunting merlin-hawk to spread your name among your waiting people!"
Caius rubbed his chin again. He was not sure what he had done to merit this, but he was not fool enough to question Fortuna's little pranks. "I am called Cai_" he began, then stopped. It would not take much for word to reach the Commander of someone with a Roman name jumped up to chieftancy of a native tribe_not the way these Celts talked. It would take less time for the bastard to then dispatch the whole legion after him. The Glorious Ninth had gone to pot, true, but the strength of their old training still made them a bad enemy. Until Caius could give his new subjects the once-over and gauge their mettle as soldiers, he would do well to lay low.
"I mean, Cai, that's just me milk-name, as I was raised with," he said hastily. "What I'm really called is_" he cudgeled his brains for a moment, desperately trying to come up with a name that was not Roman and would not ring familiar in the Commander's ears.
He found one.
"_Arctos."
He settled down to clean his sword, completely forgetting his promise to cut out the dragon's heart.
"Lord," the old man prompted. "Lord, if you do not remove the beast's heart soon, it will lose all virtue."
"Sod off," said Arctos.
The old man scowled. "Bloody foreigners," he grumbled.
Still, it would make a good story.

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Version 1.0
Remaining OCR mysteries are surrounded in [brackets]
From "Smart Dragons, Foolish Elves", edited by Alan Dean Foster
2003.06.28