"Barbara Hambly - Darwath 5 - Icefalcons Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

Just that. Marched his armies. No wet boots and feet that ached with cold. No rush of adrenaline or
hammering heart at the thought: What if I die ... ?
Marched his armies.
The turtles lumbered eyelessly to the walls.
They were sturdily built, Gil had to give them that. She couldn't imagine how they'd gotten them across
the Arrow River. She saw the overlapping hides black with water-they must weigh tons-and heard the
squeak of the overburdened wheels.
Arrows rained down from both gate towers, answered from slits in the walls and roofs. Gil wasn't fooled.
The men inside only waited for the real attack, the attempt by soldiers on foot to take the turtles.
"Come on, Ilae," whispered Melantrys, drawing, nocking, firing like a machine behind her tangle of
beams and brush, "do your stuff." The nearer turtle lurched and rocked a little, then came on. Gil guessed
that Ilae's spells of damage-broken axles, jammed wheels, wouldn't have much effect.
If Bektis could lay a weather-spell on the pass that would hold a storm there for almost forty-eight
hours-and by the clouds still roiling over the Hammerking it was even yet going strong-his counterspells
of ward on the turtles would be more than sufficient to thwart a novice like Ilae.
Certainly when the men poured forth from them and began hacking and rending at the chevaux-de-frise
between the towers, they showed no immediate signs of being affected by whatever panic and
terror-spells the girl could muster.
Rudy could probably have summoned better ones, but again, if Bektis had had sufficient time to
manufacture wards and amulets against such spells, probably even Ingold couldn't have done much.
On the other hand, Ilae's fire-spell transforming the entire barricade into a wall of flame worked just fine.
Men scattered back, dropping their shields and falling under the steady downpour of arrows. Gil's
forearm stung where the bowstring smote the leather guard.
Her fingers smarted, and smoke teared her eyes and made it hard to aim. More warriors pressed
forward from the throat of the pass, armored and bearing big man-covering shields.
Camp slaves, unarmored and dragging brush, came up behind them, piling the tinder around the walls of
the watchtowers: "Right," said Janus softly. "Time to be off, children. I guess they really, really want in."
There was no surprise in his voice, nor did Gil feel any. No commander would muster a force that large,
or construct siege equipment, on a chance raid.
A second volley of arrows burst from the trees on both sides of the pass as Lank Yar and his hunters
responded to Janus' signal to cover. Slaves fell, dying, innocent of the war that spilled their blood. Smoke
rolled up the inside of the tower like a chimney as the archers streamed down the winding stair inside, Gil
coughing, heat beating on her skin.
This in some ways was the worst, and the only time when she felt in genuine danger. She slung her bow
onto her back and joined the files of Guards-and of Ankres' mixed troop of his own men, Lord Sketh's,
and the Church warriors who made up the archers on the south tower-in the fast march-run across the
open Vale, to the Doors of the Keep.
Dr. Bannister should see me now.
If the turtles got through the burning barricade too fast and made a path for the horses, there was a
chance that Janus' retreating force could be ridden down and killed.
But they weren't. Gil didn't dare look back, with men and women running on both sides of her, two and a
half miles up the rising ground from the Tall Gates to the Keep on its knoll. On reaching the steps she
turned, panting, troopers streaming past her and through the Doors, and saw the small Alketch cavalry
galloping in futile pursuit.
In the aspen groves that surrounded the towers Lank Yar's hunters were still showering the attackers
with missiles, bales of which had been hidden in the caves northwest of the Keep and in a hundred other
caches, where the little corps of volunteers would be able to get to them in the sniping guerrilla campaign
to come.
Once the Doors were closed and the Alketch troops took the Vale, Lank Yar and his hunters would be
on their own. They'd do a certain amount of damage, thought Gil, as the Guards and the white clothed