"Lyndon Hardy - The Master of Five Magics" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hardy Lyndon)

Morwin jumped from his inactivity beside the slowly turning disk and ran through the archway to
the chamber beyond. He fetched a tripod with a small clamp attached and returned to where Alodar
stood with the splinter still at arm's length. After a few moments of adjustment, the clamp was in
position to secure the scrap of wood firmly, and Alodar relinquished his grip. Massaging his now
numb arm, he moved quickly to the edge of the bartizan to see the results of his effort.

He whisked a telescope out from his cape and sighted the basket. It now stood fixed firmly in the
sky, suspended



directly in front of one of the sheer cliffs that was their target.

"Luck be with him soon," the sergeant muttered as he watched with his own glass. "If he does not
find a ledge wide enough for the catapult within the hour, we will strike no blow for ourselves
this day. And tomorrow may be too late for any scheme, sound or foolish, to prevent a breach."

Alodar turned from watching the rider scramble onto the face of the cliff and looked at the plain
below.

"They will be in the bailey within two days for certain," the sergeant continued. "And even if
help did appear, how could it get through all that?"

Alodar followed the sweep of the mailed arm, and the sick feeling returned to his empty stomach.

The gray hills in the west stretched from horizon to horizon, stark and unbroken except for the
one deep and wide notch, like a missing tooth, directly facing him about hah! a mile distant. The
walls on the right rose tall and sheer, unbroken monoliths, smooth and inaccessible. The slopes on
the left were as steep but cracked with fissures, chimneys, and ledges, and upon these clambered
the man Alodar had transported there. Between the two faces, a train of wagons and carts, piled
with baggage and arrayed with no pattern, hid the floor of the pass from view. Alodar could make
out a motley collection of tents rising in its midst, and from the pinnacles of each flew a blue
and silver banner.



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Much closer stood an orderly array of artillery, drawn out in a precise circle that Alodar knew
completely surrounded the stronghold. With drilled exactness, their crews would load and fire in
unison. The great bows of the ballistaтАЩs hurled their rock hard and flat against the battered
outer walls, while the mangonels sent theirs high and lofted to rain down on the foundation of the
keep and the surrounding courtyard. Lighter but more accurate trebuchets blasted at the spots
already weakened by the heavier siegecraft.

Nearer still, in more irregular array, many clusters of armed men crouched behind full-length
shields shining angrily in the morning sun. The groups farther back used their protection,
casually bobbing heads and torsos to see the battle's progress. Those closer, within range of the
de-