"Modesitt, L E - Recluce 10 - Magi'i Of Cyador" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

"Yes, ser."
"We'd be better to get to the top," suggests the squad leader.
"Order it," Lorn says.
"Quick trot! Quick trot!"
Lorn keeps the mare abreast of Nytral, letting the squad leader set the pace as the column hurries toward the ridge top, raising heavy dust that the teamsters and the trailing riders will have to breathe. After reining in the mare at the crest of the hill, beside Nytral and the two scouts, Lorn looks out, squinting against the sun that barely warms the mid-afternoon.
"Barbarians..." Nytral says. "Don't look like raiders, but you can't ever tell, crazy as they are."
The score of mounted figures on the opposite hilltop are less than a kay away. The riders are bearded, with large blades in shoulder harnesses. Several have shields fastened somehow to their saddle in front of their left knees, and some have shields strapped over the bags behind their saddles.
"They won't attack... not now," Lorn observes.
Nytral raised his eyebrows. "With them... you never know."
"Do they use those shields?"
"Yes, ser." Nytral looks toward the barbarians. "They could have those out in a moment."
"Let's just wait and see if they do."
Nytral turns his mount. "Form up-eight abreast. Lances ready! Four abreast. Lances ready!"
Lorn watches the barbarians as Nytral chevies the raw lancers into formation. Abruptly, the barbarians turn their mounts and begin to ride back northward along the ridge line.
"They won't do that in the spring," Nytral prophesies as he turns his mount and eased up beside Lorn. "And they'll have more."
Lorn has few doubts about that.
"We should wait, ser. Make sure they're well along."
"Good idea. That will let the wagons catch up, too."
"Wagons... wish the firewagons and the paved roads came out this far," murmurs the squad leader. "We'd get more supplies faster."
Lorn laughs. "No, we wouldn't. They'd just move us farther north, then."
"Probably right about that." Nytral shakes his head, his eyes still on the riders headed northward.
After a moment, Lorn says, "Oh... Nytral. There's a lancer back there, about the third back on the left. Tall fellow, but he's swaying in the saddle. Might be sick... or something worse."
Nytral looks at Lorn. "That be Beryt. Used to be a squad leader. He likes the malt too much, ser."
"But he fights well out where there isn't any ale or brew?"
Nytral smiles. "Yes, ser. One of the best."
Lorn nods, then readjusts the white garrison cap, still watching the barbarians as they dwindle from sight.


XXII

The road climbs over a low rise between two hills, running westward. From the saddle of the white mare, Lorn can see a long and shallow valley ahead, one with more than a handful of Cyadoran-style brick dwellings dotting the eastern end of the valley, all with thin plumes of smoke rising through the cold air toward the cloudless green-blue sky overhead. The only trees are the infrequent and scraggly scrub cedars.
"There you are, ser," said Nytral. "Isahl's at the far west end. Be a bit afore we can see the outpost."
"We haven't seen that many farms until now," Lorn says, hoping Nytral will offer more information or opinion.
"Ha! Wouldn't see any here, except that they're all welcome in the walls if the raiders did come. They won't though. Not while Sub-Majer Brevyl's here."
"How many lancers are assigned here?"
"Don't tell me that, ser, not in figures, but we got five companies, and that's ten squads. When we're all lined up in formation-happens once in a while-I counted near-on tenscore, and that didn't take in the cooks and such."
"That should allow plenty of patrols."
"Not that many. Figure you need a company for a recon patrol; and a company to deal with a small raider band, and near-on everyone if all the barbarians in a tribe join a raid."
"Does that happen often?" Lorn leans forward and pats the mare on the neck.
"A full-tribe raid? Nah... not more than once every few years, if that. Once three summers afore last, but it was dry in the north. Figure they were hungry... or something."
"The raids, have they been happening for years? Or just in recent times?"
"Long time. Once heard Commander Thiataphi say he'd been an undercaptain out here. You tell me how many years that is, ser." Nytral laughs.
"More than a few." About fifty cubits back from the road, on both sides, Lorn notes the even irrigation ditches, brick-lined, and the miniature dams and sluice gates designed to channel the water to the fields, though the ditches are empty under the winter sun. "The barbarians try to tear the irrigation systems?"
"No. Mostly, they're after women and weapons, and horses-and whatever lancers they can kill while they're at it." Nytral lapses into silence.
Lorn looks northward as they pass a homestead, one with a house that could have been dropped into the outskirts of Cyad or Syadtar, with its green ceramic privacy screen before the front door, privacy hedges in the rear of the dwelling, and green shutters. The two outbuildings are of brick, but larger than those Lorn has seen elsewhere in Cyador. The one barn is nearly a hundred cubits long and twenty high-at the top of its tiled roof.
Even after riding two kays into the valley, Lorn has to squint against the glare of the late afternoon sun for a time before he can make out the general outline of the outpost, far larger in the ground it covers than the compound in Syadtar or the officers' training base in Kynstaar.
After another kay or so, Nytral offers, "There, ser, you can see it better."
The outpost has been built around a hillock at the west end of the long and shallow valley. The outer sunstone walls are a good eight cubits high and enclose corrals, barns, and an inner wall that holds an armory, and several long barracks-all built of stone and roofed in tile. On the lower part of the hillside, Lorn can see both a raised water cistern and what appears to be a spring with protective walls running from the spring to the armory.
"Have the barbarians ever breached the walls?" asks the undercaptain.
"Stories are that they killed most of the first garrison, generations back. Emperor said it wouldn't happen again... so they built Isahl to stop any attack. Patterned after Assyadt, except the west Jeranyi haven't caused as much trouble in a few years. Anyway... no attacks... leastwise, haven't happened since."