"Hyne,.C.J.Cutcliffe.-.Lost.Continent.-.Lostc10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hyne C J Cutcliffe)

it had been customary to despise this adventuress who had sprung
up so suddenly. But then the priests began to realise their
peril; to see that the throne itself was in danger; and to know
that if she were to be crushed, they would have to put forth their
utmost. Every man who could carry arms was pressed into the
service. Every known art of war was ordered to be put into
employment. It was the largest army, and the best equipped army
that Atlantis then had ever raised, and the Priestly Clan saw fit
to put in supreme command their general, Tatho."

"You!" I cried.

"Even myself, Deucalion. And mark you, I fought my utmost.
I was not her creature then; and when I set out (because they
wanted to spur me to the uttermost) the High Council of the priests
pointed out my prospects. The King we had known so long, was
ailing and wearily old; he was so wrapped up in the study of the
mysteries, and the joy of closely knowing them, that earthly
matters had grown nauseous to him; and at any time he might decide
to die. The Priestly Clan uses its own discretion in the election
of a new king, but it takes note of popular sentiment; and a
general who at the critical time could come home victorious from a
great campaign, which moreover would release a harassed people from
the constant application of arms, would be the idol of the moment.
These things were pointed out to me solemnly and in the full
council."

"What! They promised you the throne?"

"Even that. So you see I set out with a high stake before me.
Phorenice I had never seen, and I swore to take her alive, and give
her to be the sport of my soldiery. I had a fine confidence in my
own strategy then, Deucalion. But the old Gods, in whom I trusted
then, remained old, taught me no new thing. I drilled and
exercised my army according to the forms you and I learnt together,
old comrade, and in many a tough fight found to serve well; I armed
them with the choicest weapons we knew of then, with sling and
mace, with bow and spear, with axe and knife, with sword and the
throwing fire; their bodies I covered with metal plates; even their
bellies I cared for, with droves of cattle driven in the rear of
the fighting troops.

"But when the encounter came, they might have been men of
straw for all the harm they did. Out of her own brain Phorenice
had made fire-tubes that cast a dart which would kill beyond two
bowshots, and the fashion in which she handled her troops dazzled
me. They threatened us on one flank, they harassed us on the
other. It was not war as we had been accustomed to. It was a
newer and more deadly game, and I had to watch my splendid army
eaten away as waves eat a sandhill. Never once did I get a chance