"Jeff Grubb - Artifact Cycle Book 1 - The Brothers' War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grubb Jeff)

JEFF GRUBB
"The Brothers' War"

(Magic: the Gathering. Artifact cycle. Book I.)


PROLOGUE

OPPOSITES ATTRACT
(63 AR)

It was the night before the end of the world.
The two armies had gathered on opposite sides of a blasted
vale. Once this had been a verdant valley, its wide plain shaped
by a wide, meandering stream, its flanking hills blanketed by
thick groves of oak, blanchwood, and ironroot. Now these trees
were gone; no more than ragged stumps remained, the grass burned
away, and the earth beneath packed hard and barren. The stream
was a sluggish flow hidden by a thick film of oil, its surface
broken only by the shadowy masses of nameless solids.
Thick, inky clouds concealed the moons and stars from sight.
It had been overcast and cold on Argoth, despite unseasonably
warmer weather elsewhere on Terisiare. Both sides in the upcoming
battle had taken to torching the forests they found, if only to
deny their opponents supplies and support. By day the cloud
canopy was a dull gray, a sheet of rolled and unfinished steel.
By night it was lit only from below, by the thousands of
campfires and foundries that now dotted the landscape. Along the
opposite rims of the vale the flames lit by both invading forces
glimmered like evil eyes in the darkness.
Spanning the shallow stream was a pair of toppled giants,
remnants of an earlier battle between one of the invaders and the
original inhabitants of this land. One of the fallen giants had
been made of living wood, and had been splintered into a thousand
shards. Its huge forested head lay on the ground, screaming
silently to the uncaring night. It had been the last champion of
the natives of Argoth, the avatar of their goddess, and with its
death passed away all hope for the island people.
The victor in the battle had also been destroyed in the
struggle. This huge humanoid monster was made of stone, its
joints constructed of massive plates of pitted iron and great
brass gears. Its lithic body had been broken and patched a number
of times, and great sheets of metal had been bolted to its hide
to hold it together. The battle with the living forest beast had
overtaxed its pistons and armatures. Its final lunge had
splintered its opponent; now it sprawled forward, facedown, a
bridge over the tepid stream. One of the stone giant's arms had
been ripped loose from the battle and lay a few hundred feet
away, its fingers raised to claw the sky.
On the back of the granite giant's silent corpse a lone