"Modesitt, L E - Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

valuable than gold, and covered their two-yard-long bodies and
broad shoulders, gave them a massive and menacing appearance.
A nightram could gut a single sandwolf, although the sandwolves
were even larger, with crystal fangs more than a handspan in
length, but the sandwolves hunted in packs and tried to pick off
ewes and lambs, or older and weaker nightrams who strayed from
the flock.

One of the nightrams pawed the ground, and Alucius could sense
the antagonism between the two males. He eased the big gray
gelding forward, reaching out with his Talent to project disapproval
and separation. Both of the black-wooled rams looked up. Alucius
could sense their frustration, but they separated. Herding
nightsheep was a chancy life, and impossible, often fatal, if the
herder didn't have the Talent to make his feelings known.

Alucius was fortunate to bear within him that TalentЧmore than
fortunate, for the life of a herder suited him. That he also knew.
With his crooked smile, he let his impatience flow out, spreading
across the flock, chivvying the animals eastward. They needed to
graze on the lands near the Aerial PlateauЧthe nearer the
betterЧif their wool were to be prime.

The nightrams black undercoat was softer than duck down, cooler
than linen in summer, and warmer than sheep's wool in winter, but
stronger than iron wire once it was shorn and processed into
nightsilk. The wool of the outer coat was used for jackets stronger
and more flexibleЧand far lighterЧthan plate mail. Under
pressure, the fabric stiffened to a hardness beyond steel, hard
enough to serve as armor of sorts, although its comparative
thinness meant that bruises to the body so shielded were not
uncommonЧas Alucius well knew from his personal experience in
the militia, then the Northern Guard.

The wool from the yearlings or the ewes was equally soft, but not
as strong under duress, and was used for the garments of the
lady-gentry of such cities as Borlan, Tempre, Krost, and
Southgate. Nightsheep could make a herder a comfortable living in
Iron Stem, if they and their predators didn't kill him first.

Alucius urged the gray eastward across the ground where little
grew except the quarasote bushes, on whose tender new stalks
the nightsheep fed. After a year's growth, the lower shoots of the
bushes toughened, and after two, not even a maul-axe with a knife-
sharp blade on the axe side could cut through the toughened bark,
and the finger-long thorns that grew in the third year could slice
through any boot leather. In its fourth year, each bush flowered with
tiny silver-green blossoms. The blossoms became seedpods that
exploded across the sandy wastes in the chill of winter, and then
the bush died, leaving behind dead stalks that contained too much