"George R. R. Martin - Ice and Fire 0.6 - The Sworn Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

Other invaders came in turn. The Andals crossed the narrow sea in ships, and with iron and fire they
swept across the kingdoms of the First Men, and drove the children from their forests, putting many of
the weirwoods to the ax. They brought their own faith, worshiping a god with seven aspects whose
symbol was a seven-pointed star. Only in the far north did the First Men, led by the Starks of Winterfell,
throw back the newcomers. Elsewhere the Andals triumphed, and raised kingdoms of their own. The
children of the forest dwindled and disappeared, while the First Men intermarried with their conquerors.

The Rhoynar arrived some thousands of years after the Andals, and came not as invaders but as
refugees, crossing the seas in ten thousand ships to escape the growing might of the Freehold of Valyria.
The lords freeholder of Valyria ruled the greater part of the known world; they were sorcerers, great in
lore, and alone of all the races of man they had learned to breed dragons and bend them to their will.
Four hundred years before the opening ofA Song of Ice and Fire , however, the Doom descended on
Valyria, destroying the city in a single night. Thereafter the great Valyrian empire disintegrated into
dissension, barbarism, and war.

Westeros, across the narrow sea, was spared the worst of the chaos that followed. By that time only
seven kingdoms remained where once there had been hundredsтАФbut they would not stand for much
longer. A scion of lost Valyria named Aegon Targaryen landed at the mouth of the Blackwater with a
small army, his two sisters (who were also his wives), and three great dragons. Riding on dragonback,
Aegon and his sisters won battle after battle, and subdued six of the seven Westerosi kingdoms by fire,
sword, and treaty. The conqueror collected the melted, twisted blades of his fallen foes, and used them to
make a monstrous, towering barbed seat: the Iron Throne, from which he ruled henceforth as Aegon, the
First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven
Kingdoms.

The dynasty founded by Aegon and his sisters endured for most of three hundred years. Another
Targaryen king, Daeron the Second, later brought Dorne into the realm, uniting all of Westeros under a
single ruler. He did so by marriage, not conquest, for the last of the dragons had died half a century
before.The Hedge Knight, published in the firstLegends , takes place in the last days of Good King
DaeronтАЩs reign, about a hundred years before the opening of the first of theIce and Fire novels, with the
realm at peace and the Targaryen dynasty at its height. It tells the story of the first meeting between
Dunk, a hedge knightтАЩs squire, and Egg, a boy who is rather more than he seems, and of the great
tourney at Ashford Meadow.The Sworn Sword, the tale that follows, picks up their story a year or so
later.




THE SWORN SWORD




A Tale of the Seven Kingdoms

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 Legends II