"Mercedes Lackey - Heralds of Valdemar 3 - Arrow's Fall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Prologue

Long agoтАФso long ago that the details of the conflict are lost and only the
merest legends remainтАФthe world of Velgarth was wracked by sorcerous wars.
With the population decimated, the land was turned to wasteland and given over
to the forest and the magically-engendered creatures those peoples had used to
fight those wars, while the people that remained fled to the eastern
coastline, for only in those wilderness areas could they hope to resume their
shattered lives. In time, it was the eastern edge of the continent that became
the site of civilization, and the heartland tftat in turn became the
wilderness.

But humans are cesilient creatures, and it was not overlong before the
population once again was on the increase, moving westward, building new
kingdoms out of the wilds.

One such kingdom was Valdemar. It had been founded by the once-Baron Valdemar
and those of his people who had chosen exile with him rather than face the
wrath of a selfish and cruel monarch. It lay on the very western-and-
northeramost edge of the civilized world, bounded on the north and northwest
by wilderness that still contained uncanny creatures, and on the far west by
Lake Evendim, an enormous inland sea. Travel beyond Valdemar was perilous and
uncertain at the very best of times, and at the worst a traveler could bring
weird retribution on innocents when the creatures he encountered back-trailed
him to his point of origin.

In part due to the nature of its founders, the monarchs of Valdemar welcomed
fugitives and fellow exiles, and

70 Mercedes Lackey

the customs and habits of its people had over the years become a polyglot
patchwork. In point of fact, the one rule by which the monarchs of Valdemar
governed their people was, "There is no 'one true way.' "

Governing such an ill-assorted lot of subjects might have been impossibleтАФhad
it not been for the Heralds of Valdemar.

The Heralds had extraordinary powers, yet never abused those powers; and the
reason for their forbearanceтАФin fact for the whole systemтАФwas the existence of
creatures known as "Companions."

To one who knew no better, a Companion would seem little more than an
extraordinarily graceful white horse. They were for more than that. The first
Companions had been sent by some unknown power or powers at the pleading of
King Valdemar himselfтАФthree of them, at first, who had made bonds with the
King, his Heir, and his most trusted friend, who was the Kingdom Herald. So it
came to be that the Heralds took on a new importance in Valdemar, and a new
role.