"L. E. Modesitt - Recluce 04 - The Chaos Balance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

"Ready as ever." He laid the alloy on the coals. From bitter experience he'd learned that, in
the initial stages of forging blades, the softer local iron had to be forge-welded into the alloy,
not the other way around.
By the time the midday chimes rang from the tower, they had managed to flatten the iron of the
local blade into the strip of alloy, flatten the mixed metals, fold them and flatten them once,
twice, and three times, then yet again. A dozen or more such fold-weld-flattenings, and Nylan
would have metal ready to forge into a blade itself. He knew that even more of the pattern-welding
would have been better, but time was short, and Ryba less than perfectly patient. In any case, the
later forge steps would go more quickly.
All winter long he and Huldran had forged blades, spurred on by Ryba's insistence that every
guard-every recruit- should have at least two of the shortswords that were equally deadly as
blades or missiles. All of the blades were essentially modified copies of the pair that Ryba had
brought down from the Winterlance-the Sybran nomad blades the Marshal and former captain of the
angel ship had carried and practiced with throughout her service career.
"I'll bank the coals, ser, not that we've much to bank."
"You up to starting one of your own this afternoon?"
"Why not?"
"Then dump some logs on the fire."
Huldran grinned. "You going to practice after you eat? That's dangerous."
"I'll be careful." Either Saryn or Istril or Siret would single him out. He and Ryba avoided
practicing skills against each other-there was too much resentment there for it to be safe for
either of them.
Nylan racked the hammers and checked the metal blank that would soon be another deadly
shortsword, then eased on his jacket before heading out of the smithy and down toward the tower.
A handful of newer guards, led by Murkassa, one of the first locals to seek out Westwind,
walked swiftly down from the canyon that held livestock and mounts, but they were several hundred
paces up the road from the smithy. The round-faced and brown-haired guard lifted a hand in
greeting, and Nylan returned it before turning onto the road.
Nylan had barely cooled off before he stepped through the main door to Tower Black. He squinted
in the far dimmer light of the tower, but took a deep breath of the fresh-baked dark bread that
Blynnal did so well and the aroma of something else-the mint-spiced stew, he thought, probably
created around the remnants of the deer that Ayrlyn had brought in two days earlier, after the
light dusting of snow from a spring storm.
"Nylan?" Istril, carrying her son Weryl in her arms, motioned from the de facto nursery on the
left side of the tower entry area.
He turned and crossed the stones of the entry hall.
Her face was slightly flushed, as though she had been outside in the cold. Weryl's face was
also red.
"You were outside?" Nylan asked.
"We walked up to the stables with Siret and Kyalynn. Ydrall went with us, but she was cold the
whole way. Kyalynn and Weryl just babbled the whole time." Istril grinned down at her son. "The
cold like this doesn't bother him at all."
"With what you wrapped him in, I imagine not."
"I am glad you got another snow cat. Once I have it tanned, it will make a good parka."
"For a year or two." Nylan laughed.
"Da!" offered Weryl, thrusting a chubby hand toward his father.


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