"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 19 - Looters of Tharn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

this time. But they did hope to destroy us, and they did not care if they all died in doing so."

"They must have been terrible enemies."

"They were. And-though it shames me to remember it-many of us had doubts about those Pethcine men
we had taken to be the fathers of the new people. Where would their loyalties lie? We could not help
wondering."

But those who had once been Pethcines were now of the people. They could not turn against their
children and the women who were the mothers of those children. They marched out against the attackers.
From that moment there was truly one people in Tharn, and the attackers didn't have a chance.

"It was soon clear that we would win, and we did not care to do more than drive the enemy back into
the Gorge. But then their raiders struck deep into Tharn, and among our dead was Zulekia, your
Beloved."

Gentle Zulekia, dead in war with the Pethcines. The fate she had once escaped had finally caught up with
her. "May she rest in peace," said Blade, half to himself.

"After that we did not willingly leave a Pethcine alive," said Krimon. "We drove them from the plateau.
We marched down into the Gorge and rooted them out of every cave and valley there, like a farmer
rooting out weeds from his grainfields. What we could not kill we brought home. What we could not
bring home we burned where it was, or threw it off high cliffs. If there are enough Pethcines left to make
a good drinking party, it is not our fault. We have explored through the Gorge and out to a quarter of a
year's travel beyond it without finding any of them."

"I see," said Blade. It was not a pretty story, but he couldn't see any reason to mourn for the Pethcines.
They had tried to destroy the best hope for human civilization in this dimension, and instead they had
been destroyed. It was rough but undeniable justice.

"The Lesser War made us truly one people, and Rikard the Son of Mazda became King at the time of
the harvest that year. We moved forward swiftly from that time, with good crops, the children growing up
and beginning to have children of their own and do much work, and so on. Among the children the men
and women began to pair off and raise their families and work their fields. Until two years ago it seemed
that the worst was over. But then-came-the Looters." Krimon's head wobbled on his skinny neck and
sank down on his chest.

"What about the Looters?" asked Blade sharply. Krimon was silent. Blade reached over and shook the
neuter. His eyes flickered open briefly, then closed again. Then he toppled over on one side with a thud.
A moment later Blade heard a rasping snore. Krimon was sound asleep!

Well, it was hard to blame him. It had been a long and eventful day for the neuter, who was no longer
young. Blade nodded, fought back an enormous yawn, and realized that the day's events had taken a
good deal out of him too. Perhaps sleep was the best thing for both of them. He wished he could set
some kind of alarm, but he wasn't sure how to do it. If the Looters came-

The Looters could wait until tomorrow. Blade laid his head down on the floor and was asleep in less
than a minute.

Chapter 11