"Ed Greenwood - Band of Four 04 - The Dragon's Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

world away! What were they thinking"
"Ah, that's just it," his friend Drunter said, spitting thoughtfully into a
corner heaped with rusty scraps of old metal. "They don't think, up at
Flowfoam. If they did, we'd not have half the realm dead, every third brute
calling himself baron, and the hissing snake-heads still lurking behind every
tree."
"Hoy, now!" the smith growled. "Untrustworthy as the rest an' beloved of
talking menace they may beтАФbut the Serpents pay good coin an' do no worse than
any baron, an' I've never had a baron fetch me water before, just to be
helpful an' not expecting anything in return!" He wiped his brow with a brawny
forearm, blinked at the nails splayed out in his hand, and shook his head.
"B'y'Three, but I'm hot today," he growled. "Don't know why... shouldn't be
wet as this, after so short at the forge . . ." He took a swig from the
longpipe of water on the post two paces from his anvil, gasped, and shook his
head again.
"You be looking pale, Ruld," Dunhuld Drunter said helpfully. " Tis all that
wenching, I'll be bound!" He tried a grin, but put it away again swiftly when
the blacksmith only grunted.
"Ah, but at least the weather's holding up," Branjack offered. "If this
keeps on as it looks to, we'll have a good harvest, sure."
The smith spat and shook his head grimly. "An' who'll bring it in, with so
many dead? Grain's nothing but a free meal for the gorcraws if it rots in the
fields. Sirl merchants won't pay to reap an' huskтАФan' won't pay fair coin at
all, if they can claim there's a glut. Some of them are claiming that already,
an' not a plant in the Vale properly showing its own yet!"
"Ah, but Ruld, we've seen war and plundering outlanders and misrule before
thisтАФaye, and bad weather tooтАФand there's still enough to fill every belly in
Fallingtree, and Aglirta yet stands around us. Oh, barons rise and barons
fall, and no doubt there's lives wasted and coins gone that could have been
saved if the Kingless Land never saw strife, and a good strong king ruled well
from Flowfoam .. . but what man alive has seen that, as the years and years
pass? Yet we still have a kingdom that Sirl folk, for all their coins, covet
dearly."
"Aye," the smith shot back, a strange green and purplish hue washing
momentarily across his face, "yet I doubt me not if Aglirta had seen less
foolishness of barons and blood spilled needlessly, the Vale would rule
Sirlptar outright, long since, an' we'd all have coins to toss an' roll about
in."
"And then ye'd only charge a dozen times what you do now, Ruld," Drunter
responded, "as would we all, hey? And where would this golden Aglirta come
from, where the gods make barons behave differently than barons have ever
done, anywhere? And kept the weather grand, folk friends to all, and the
reavers of all DarsarтАФaye, and the swindlers Sirl city breeds, tooтАФfar away?"
The smith shook his head like a horse seeking to drive off persistent flies,
and growled again wordlessly as he snatched up hammer and shoe, and approached
the horse strapped into the shoeing harness. "Tempt me not into clever
answers, friend Drunter," he grunted, as he hung the shoe over the usual hook
and caught up the massive hoof to be shod, "an' I'll spin thee no airy tales,
hey?"
"Wise words, Ruld," Branjack said quickly, wary of the smith's tone of