"Elizabeth Lynn - Chronicles of Tornor 1 - Watchtower" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lynn Elizabeth A)

======================
Watchtower
by Elizabeth A. Lynn
======================

Copyright (c)1979 by Elizabeth A. Lynn


e-reads
www.ereads.com

Fantasy
Winner of the World Fantasy Award

---------------------------------
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original
purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk,
network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international
copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.
---------------------------------


Other works by Elizabeth A. Lynn also availabe in e-reads editions
The Northern Girl
The Dancers of Arun
The Sardonyx Net
--------
The land of Arun is a fictional place, and its people, culture, and
customs bear only inadvertent resemblance to people and histories of our world,
with one exception. The art of the chearis, as it is described, resembles in
some aspects the Japanese martial art _aikido_, created by Master Morihei
Uyeshiba. This imitation is deliberate. Writers must write what they know. In
gratitude for that knowledge, the author respectfully wishes to thank her
teachers.
--------
*one*
Tornor Keep was dead and burning.
Ryke's face was soot-stained, and his wrists were skinned raw where he
had torn them twisting in his chains. His head ached. He was not sure of what
he'd seen and not seen happen. He lay in the inner courtyard. He could see a
plume of smoke from the outer wall, where Col Istor's sappers had breached it
and pulled it down. He smelled the smoke of a nearer burning. Behind him, in the
great hall, something was in flames.
Athor, lord of the Keep, was dead, long beard bloody from the wounds he'd
taken. Ryke had seen him fall, and in the haze of the fight had expected Tornor
castle and tower and walls to waver and fall with him in the shock ... But it
had not happened. The walls were still there. All the men of Ryke's watch were
dead. They lay outside the gates they had died defending, frozen into the
uncaring snow. Ryke pictured the women from the village coming in spring to dig
the bodies of their husbands and sons from the loosening ground.