"Tim Lebbon - Dusk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lebbon Tim)

Thanks to Jason and Jeremy at Night Shade Books for giving me the chance, Katherine Roberts for her
support whilst writing this novel, Chris Golden for a sympathetic ear, Rich SanFilippo for first contact,
my long-suffering agent Steve Calcutt


and


a huge thanks to my wonderful editor, Anne Groell, for her sharp eye and unending wit, and her
refreshing interest in Welsh place names. I canтАЩt help living in Goytre.




PART ONE First Signs of
Night




Chapter 1

WHEN KOSAR SAW the horseman, the world began to end again.

The horse walked toward the village, the rider shifting in fluid time to his mountтАЩs steps. The manтАЩs
body was wrapped in a deep red cloak, pulled up so that it formed a hood over his head, shadowing his
face. His hands rested on his thighs. The horse made its own way along the road. Loose reins hung to
either side of its head, its mane was clotted with dirt, and its unshod hooves clacked and clicked puffs of
dust from the dry trail. Only one man on a horse, and he did not appear to be armed.

How, then, could Kosar know that death followed him in?

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 Dusk



With a grimace he stopped work and squatted. A warm breeze kissed the raw flesh of his fingertipsтАФthe
marks of a thiefтАФand took away the pain for a few precious moments. Blood had dripped and dried into
a dust-caked mess across his hands and between his fingers, and they crackled when he flexed them. The
unhealing wounds were a permanent reminder of the mistakes of his past.

Kosar decided that the irrigation trenches could wait a few minutes more. It had taken two years for the
village to decide to commission them; another moment would make no difference to the crops withering
and dying in the fields. Besides, they needed much more than water, though most would refuse to
believe that was so. And now there was something more interesting to grab his attention, something that
might bring excitement to this measly little collection of huts, hovels and run-down dwellings that dared
call itself a village.