"Mithgar - Hel's Crucible - 02 - Into The Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKiernan Dennis L)

Long they lay atop the hill and watched the maggot-folk march up the road and past and away while the waning gibbous moon sailed overhead and down, and Beau fell asleep with the waiting. And when finally the Spawn were gone from sight, Phais awakened the buccan and down the slope they all went, back to the horses and ponies, Beau grumbling that Year's Short Day was now also gone and they hadn't gotten to have their birthday party.





"Bekki says there's a town some miles ahead," said Tip, thumbing among his map sketches, finding the one he sought and showing it to Beau. "It's here at the fork where the Ironwater meets this tributary. Perhaps we can have a good hot meal and a bath and a mug of ale."

"Oh, Tip, don't say that."

"WhaЧ?" Tip looked at his friend. "Why not?"

"Well, every time we've counted on getting a good hot meal and a warm bath and a good bed and such in the next town, we arrive only to find it destroyedЧStede, An-nory, that town in Valon, Braeton, Dael."





"See what I mean?" hissed Beau.

They stood in the woods and peered across the frozen Ironwater River at the small town on the far bank, where a company of swart maggot-folk looted and burned.

Tip sighed. "There are too many to fight."

Phais nodded. "We must ride on. To do otherwise is to risk the mission."

Bekki growled. "I like not this leaving of foe at our backs, yet I agree."

As they trudged among the trees toward the horses and ponies, Tip said, "There was a time, Bekki, when all I wanted was to kill Spawn. But no more. The death of Alor Lerren and others at Braeton was the first time I realized that people I knew would actually be killed while I sought my revenge. And then there were the terrible losses at Mineholt North . . . the price we pay is too high."

Loric looked down at the buccan. "The price paid for vengeance indeed is oft too great, wee one, yet no price is too high to pay for liberty, for it is precious beyond reckoning."

Bekki grunted. "Loric, I would argue with you concerning the worth of vengeance, yet not on the value of liberty."

They came to the place where the animals were tethered and mounted up and rode slowly through the woods, out of sight of the plundering Rupt, passing the town by, each of the comrades feeling somewhat guilty at leaving living enemy behind.





Days passed and days more, and still they followed the road through the woods bordering the Ironwater River, and ten days after leaving the ruins of Dael, they neared the town of Bridgeton, there where a gap forty miles wide broached the ring of the Rimmen Mountains. And through this gap the waterway flowed southerly, the Sea Road following along as both wended down to the far Avagon Sea. And faring across, stretching east and west, through the breach ran the Landover Road, the Grimwall Mountains at one end, far Xian at the other.

And as the five comrades neared the gap, through the river-border trees they could see trails of smoke blearing the sky.

"Oh no," groaned Beau.

None else said aught as they rode onward.

Yet at last they emerged from the woods, and Beau broke into tears, for in the gap ahead they saw a town yet whole, smoke from chimneys rising into the air.