"L. E. Modesitt - Corean Chronicles 5 - Cadmians Choice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

the corners with lead map weights, he took out the calipers and measured the
distance from Southgate to Zalt and then north to Tempre and back south to
Hyalt. Six hun┬-dred twenty vingts, roughly, or more than two long weeks, at
least twenty days on the road. Given that, he could under┬-stand the need for
a larger permanent garrison in Hyalt, but he had to wonder why one had not
been established earlier.
As always, Rhystan was the first to arrive.
"Good morning, sir." Rhystan's deference had con┬-cerned Mykel at first when
he had first taken command of Third Battalion. Rhystan had been senior to him
when they had both been captains, but Mykel hadn't been about to argue when
the Marshal of Myrmidons and the High Alector of Justice had promoted him to
majer over Rhys┬-tan. The senior captain in Third Battalion, Rhystan
com┬-manded Sixteenth Company.
"Good morning." Mykel gestured to the center chair across the desk.
"Swerkyl said that the colonel received a dispatch early this morningт"well
before breakfast, delivered by pteridon."
"You know things before I do." Mykel laughed easily. "Did Swerkyl know what
was in it?"
"He never does. He just assumes the worst." A wry smile appeared on Rhystan's
thin lips, then vanished. "How bad is it?"
"We had two choicesт"either go and do patrol duty in Iron Stem ..." Mykel
paused. "... or what we got, and that's another bunch of rebels in the hills,
this time in Hyalt."
"From what I heard from Clensdyf about the Iron Val┬-leys, the colonel was
kind."
"Fourth Battalion is going to Iron Stem." Mykel stopped and gestured for
Culeyt to enter the study. Be-
hind him were the three undercaptains. He waited until all five officers in
their maroon-and-gray uniforms were seated in the small study that had once
been Majer Va-clyn's and was now assigned to him. In the center was Rhystan.
To his right was Culeyt, who had been recently promoted from undercaptain and
transferred from Fourth Battalion to take over Fourteenth Company. Loryalt,
Fab-rytal, and Dyarth were all undercaptains. Fabrytal was the most junior, a
former senior squad leader from Fourth Battalion, but he was commanding
Fifteenth Company, Mykel's former command and the only company besides
Sixteenth Company that had come out of the Dramurian campaign largely intact.
Fourteenth Company had been left with a core of some forty seasoned rankers,
but Thir┬-teenth and Seventeenth Companies had been effectively wiped out,
necessitating their re-formation with a major┬-ity of recruits and only a
handful of experienced rankers pulled from elsewhere in the regiment.
Mykel waited for a moment. "First off, I'm changing the drills for the next
week. We'll be moving out to the broken-ground training area from now on.
We'll be work┬-ing on tactics against irregulars."
The red-haired Loryalt raised his eyebrows, but did not speak.
Rhystan saw the expression, and the faintest smile crossed his thin lips.
"I can see you have a question, Loryalt," Mykel ob┬-served.
"Ah... no, sir."
Mykel laughed.
So did Rhystan.
"You're wondering why we're moving onto broken-terrain training when