"Paul Kearney - Monarchies of God 4 - The Second Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kearney Paul)

Back in Normannia, the Ramusian Church was split down the middle as three of the Five Kingdoms
recognised Macrobius as the true Pontiff, while the rest preferred the newly elected Himerius. Religious
war erupted as the three so-called Heretic KingsтАФAbeleyn of Hebrion, Mark of Astarac and Lofantyr
of Torunna, fought to keep their thrones. They all succeeded, but Abeleyn had the hardest battle to fight.
He had to storm his own capital, Abrusio, by land and sea, half-destroying it in the process. And in the
moment of his final victory, he was smashed down by a stray shell, which blasted what remained of his
body into a deep coma.

As Abeleyn lay senseless, administered to by his faithful wizard Golophin, a power struggle began. His
mistress Jemilla strove to set up a Regency to govern the kingdom, which would recognise the right of her
unborn childтАФnominally, the KingтАЩsтАФto succeed to the throne. Golophin and Isolla, AbeleynтАЩs Astaran
fianc├йe, worked in their turn to curb JemillaтАЩs ambitions. After the weary GolophinтАЩs sorcerous powers
were restored by the unexpected intervention of Aruan from the West, Abeleyn was roused from his
coma, his missing legs replaced by magical limbs of wood.

All across the continent, the Monarchies of God were in a state of violent flux. In Almark, the dying King
Haukir bequeathed his kingdom to the Himerian Church, transforming it overnight into a great temporal
power. The man at its head, Himerius, was in fact a puppet of the Western sorcerer Aruan, and after a
strange and agonising initiation, he had become a lycanthrope like his master.

And in Charibon two of his humbler fellow-clerics, Albrec and Avila, stumbled upon an ancient
document, a biography of St Ramusio which stated that he was one and the same as the Merduk Prophet
Ahrimuz. The two monks, guilty of heresy, fled Charibon, but not before a macabre encounter with the
chief librarian of the monastery city, who also turned out to be a werewolf. They ran into the teeth of a
midwinter blizzard, and would have died in the snow had they not been rescued by a passing Fimbrian
army, which was on its way east to support the Torunnans in their great battles against the Merduks. The
monks finally made their weary way to Torunn itself, there to confront Macrobius with the momentous
knowledge they carried.

Further east, the great Torunnan fortress of Ormann Dyke became the focuss of the Merduk assaults,
and there Corfe distinguished himself in its defence. He was promoted and, catching the eye of TorunnaтАЩs
Queen Dowager, Odelia, was given the mission of bringing to heel the rebellious nobles in the south of
the kingdom. This he undertook with a motley, ill-equipped band of ex-galley slaves which was all the
Torunnan King would allow him. Plagued by the memory of his lost wife, he was, mercifully, unaware
that she had in fact survived AekirтАЩs fall and was now the favourite concubine of the Sultan Aurungzeb
himselfтАФand bearing his child.

The Merduks finally abandoned their costly frontal assaults and outflanked Ormann Dyke by sea, forcing
the fortressтАЩs evacuation. The retreating garrison joined up with the Fimbrians who had arrived, too late,
to reinforce them, and the combined force would have been destroyed at the North More, had not Corfe
disobeyed orders and taken his own command north to break them out of their encirclement. As it was,
half of the two armies were lost, and Corfe, thanks to the intrigues of the Torunnan Queen-Mother,
became General of the remainder. He and Odelia became lovers, which added to the whispering
campaign against him at court, and further prejudiced young King Lofantyr against him.

Lofantyr led the entire remaining Torunnan army into the field in a last-ditch attempt to halt the advancing
Merduks, and in a titanic battle north of his capital he lost his wife. Corfe wrenched a bloody victory of
sorts out of the d├йb├вcle, and once more brought the army homeтАФthis time to be made
Commander-in-Chief.