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

"So we thrust a pitchfork through every mage we spot, and what then?
Who of our Great Lord Barons can be trusted not to lash out on a whim?
They've all been little tyrants to put the most decadent kings of the old
tales to shame!"
"And here we sit, thinner and fewer, every year, while their madness rages
around us and Aglirta bleeds."
An empty tankard thunked down on a table, and its owner sighed gustily,
clenched his hand into a helpless fist, and added bitterly, "And the great
hope of the common folk, Bloodblade, turned out to be no better than the
rest."
An old scribe nodded. "All our dreams fallen and trampled," he said sadly,
"and no one cares."
A drover shot Flaeros a look so venomous that the bard's fingers faltered on
his harpstrings, and growled, "Now we have some boy for a King, and his four
tame overdukes scour the countryside for barons and wizards who took arms
against him-and who cares for us?"


1
To Conquer a Kingdom

The rattle of keys awakened an echo in that dark and stone-walled place, and
then a heavy door scraped open, flooding torchlight into a damp darkness that
had lasted for decades. Old Thannaso, who kept the locks and hingesтАФand the
manacles that waited on the gigantic wall wheel within, gleaming now in the
leaping flamesтАФwell oiled, was as blind as deep night, and so had no need to
light his way when he worked.
A lithe, slender man who wore skintight garb of soft, smoky-gray leather on
his body and a half-smile upon his darkly handsome face held the torch high
and behind his own shoulder, to peer into all corners of the cell. A little
water was seeping in high on the south wall, glistening as it ran down the
stone, but of intrudersтАФbeyond a small, scuttling legion of spidersтАФhe saw
none. Craer Delnbone was one of the best procurers in all Asmarand... which is
to say that after too many years of escapades enough for a dozen thieves, he
was still alive. If Craer's bright eyes saw no intruder, none was there.
The woman who followed at his elbow saw nothing either. She was much of
Craer's size, and moved against him with the familiarity of intimate
companions, but she was no thief. Tshamarra Talasorn was a sorceress from a
proud family of Sirlptar, the last of her line-and her tongue could be every
bit as sharp as her wits, as Craer had learned to both his fascination and
cost. His "Tash" wore garments cut like his but of shimmerweave and silk, that
flashed back torchlight every bit as much as her large and alert eyes. She,
too, saw no peril in the cellтАФthough most of her thin-lipped attention was
bent upon the burden being carried behind her.
That burden was a large, stout man in rich garments, frozen in a pose as
stiff and rigid as stone save for his furious eyesтАФeyes that darted this way
and that, seeking to see all as one does who knows he will soon have very
little to look upon at all. An armaragor of great size and thews carried the
straight, immobile man, with the legs-steadying aid of a slightly smaller,
older warrior who strode along with the easy authority of one born to command.