"Jean Lorrah - Empire 02 - Dragonlord of the Savage Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lorrah Jean)

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Chapter One



The full moon lighted the land with ghostly luminescence. Lenardo, a dread fear constricting his heart,
sought out Castle Nerius. He found the hills, the road, the forest. In a nearby field, the flat rock where
they built the funeral pyres lay empty, cold in the pale moonlight.



As he approached the castle, his anxiety increased . . . and then he saw it, its walls and towers fallen,
smoke rising from the remains of the houses that had clustered about its gate. There was no sign of life.



She's dead! By all the godsтАФI deserted her, and now she's dead, and our child with her.



Lenardo jolted out of his waking dream, the same dream that had haunted his sleep the past two nights.
He had put it down to anxiety at being forced into a position of leadership, a role he was not born or
trained to. But now, when the vision rose again in broad daylight, he wondered whether it was trueтАФone
of his precognitive flashes. He had never before had one so long or so detailedтАФor so persistent.



He was riding away from Castle Nerius, away from the events that had turned a Master Reader of the
Aventine Empire into a Lord of the Land among the savages. Away from Aradia.



It was too far now to Read back to Castle Nerius. They had come a day's journey and another
morning's ride. Within a few hours, Lenardo and his followers would reach the city of ZendiтАФhis city
now, the capital of the land he ruled. His land for as long as he could hold it.



It won't have to be long, he thought, reassuring himself.