"Shirley Meier & S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millenium 02 - Saber and Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Shirley)

The intelligence report had been fairly unequivocal. It had been fifty years
since the Five Nations War, and Fehinna had recovered faster than any of the
coalition that had fought her to a standstill two generations ago. They would
be in no position to stop Fehinna expanding, as long as the armies of the
God-King didn't try to move directly north. And we're ready.

Her eyes lifted to the map across the room. Fehinna held most of the lowlands
around the Cayspec; five centuries ago they had finished pushing the last of
the western savages out of the fertile Piedmont country, over the Blue Crests
and the great valley beyond, into the rugged wastes of the Payalach Mountains.
No profit in war there, against wild highlanders who had little worth taking;
most of them were headhunters, many were cannibals, and all of them had
damnable skill with their horn-and-elm bows.

Not north, no. Maailun and Eassho were both smaller than Fehinna but nearly as
rich and much alike in customs and speech, properly worshiping the Sun,
however heretical their fashion. Behind them the Penza city-states, Lankaz and
Yawuc and the rest. The last great war had gone north, lasted a decade and
killed every fourth adult in five great nations.

South is the prize, she knew. Kaailun. Huge, populous, but rather backward by
her nation's standards; the people spoke dialects similar to Fehinnan, but
they were pagans who slaughtered cattle and humans to the ancient spirits,
Gawhud and Olsaytn, Jayskri and Ussay. She made the holy sun-circle over her
chest. That would interest the priests, in their ever-eager hunt for heretics.
More to the point, what had been a loosely united kingdom in her grandparents'
tune had fallen apart into feudal anarchy, an anarchy among which Fehinnan
money and agents had laid the foundations of conquest.

Not an easy war, but well worth it. Rich land, needing only modem techniques
to bring it to full bearing. A people advanced enough to make valuable and
docile slaves and underlings, as well; the markets would be glutted. Glory and
wealth for the leaders, estates for the younger-child gentlefolk who officered
the Fehinnan armies, farms for settlers.

Not to mention converts for the temple to tithe, she added mentally; although
sometimes she felt they were almost as eager for recalcitrants to send to the
Holy Light.

One solution for several problems. Maahh and Sanha, to start with. Both
corps-commanders, both able, and both from rival family coalitions. A serious
war would leave many extremely honorable and extremely perilous positions to
be filled ... which they could not decline with honor.

Now to convince the priests.

Under the Sun-On-Earth, the God-King, She-who-lives-forever, the High Priest
Cubilano was the power in the temple. Eager for expansion; not so eager to see
the military grow in power and influence.