"David Gemmell - Winter Warriors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gemmel David)

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turned away from it, toppling into the fire. 'Fool,' said Nogusta. 'The blade was life.'

The fire was blazing now and the black man rose and removed his cloak and shirt. His upper body
was strongly muscled and heavily scarred. Sitting down once more he leaned forward, extending his
hands to the blaze. Idly he twirled the small, ornate charm he wore around his neck. It was an
ancient piece, a white-silver crescent moon, held in a slender golden hand. The gold was heavy and
dark, and the silver never tarnished. It remained, like the moon, pure and glittering. He heard
his father's voice echo down the vaults of memory: 'A man greater than kings wore this magic
charm, Nogusta. A great man. He was our ancestor and while you wear it make sure that your deeds
are always noble. If they remain so you will have the gift of the Third Eye.'

Is that how you knew the robbers were in the north pasture?'

'Yes.'

'But don't you want to keep it?'

'It chose you, Nogusta. You saw the magic. Always the talisman chooses. It has done so for
hundreds of years. And - if the Source wills - it will choose one of your own sons.'

If the Source wills . . .

But the Source had not willed.
Nogusta curled his hand around the talisman, and stared into the fire, hoping for a vision. None
came.

From his saddlebag he took a small package and opened it. It contained several strips of dried,
salted beef. Slowly he ate them.

Adding two logs to the fire he moved to the bed. The blankets were thin and dusty and he shook
them out. Away from the blaze he shivered, then laughed at

himself. 'You are getting old,' he said. 'Once upon a time the cold would not have affected you
this way.'

Back at the fire once more he put on his shirt. A face came into his mind, sharp featured and with
an easy, friendly smile. Orendo the Scout. They had ridden together for almost twenty years,
serving first the old king and then his warrior son. Nogusta had always liked Orendo. The man was
a veteran, and when you gave him an order you knew it would be carried out to the letter. And he
had a heart. Once, several years back, Orendo had found a child lost in the snow, unconscious and
half dead from the cold. He had carried him back to camp, then sat with him all night, warming
blankets, rubbing the boy's frozen skin. The child had survived.

Nogusta sighed. Now Orendo was on the run with two other soldiers, having murdered a merchant and
raped his daughter. She too had been left for dead, but the knife had missed her heart, and she
had lived to name her attackers.

'Don't bring them back,' the White Wolf had told him. 'I want them dead. No public trials. Bad for