"Recluce - 07 - The Chaos Balance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

guards clear the sections near the tower, extending the cleared areas
daily- as much to begin physically conditioning the upper bodies of
refugees as for the need to return the road to the condition necessary
for the timber carts that would begin to roll once the way to the high
forests below Westwind was clear.
аа The smith frowned as he turned off the road and crossed the packed
snow, to the door of the smithy. This winter there had been enough wood
for the furnaces, and for hot water in the bathhouse, unlike the first
winter on the Roof of the World. They'd still had to slaughter some of
the sheep for lack of fodder, but only a few.
аа Nylan eased open the smithy door, closing it behind him, before he
spoke to Huldran. "You were up here early."
аа "It was noisy this morning. Dephnay was howling, and neither Siret nor
Istril could quiet her. So," the stocky blond guard beside the forge
shrugged, "all three were awake. Yours, thank darkness, don't howl. They
just babble. But I don't sleep that well with babbling."
аа "I'm sorry, Huldran."
аа "It isn't your fault. Istril keeps telling me that, as if every guard
doesn't know it."
аа "She didn't have-"
аа "Ser . . . you're not perfect and neither is the Marshal, but between
the two of you, you've saved us, and a lot of women on this forsaken
planet. No one else could have designed and built Tower Black."
аа Nylan reached for the leather apron.
аа "Not much left in the way of charcoal." The stocky Huldran fed another
set of short logs to the forge fire. "We're back to starting with wood
coals."
аа "Saryn said the wood crews could do a charcoal burn early this spring.
She's got enough bodies."
аа "Warm bodies we've got," Huldran snorted. "Trained guards we don't,
and two of the best are Siret and Istril." She broke off.
аа "I know. I know." And Nylan did. Both the silver-haired guards had
children less than a year old, and both children were his-through Ryba's
manipulation of the last residue of angel high-technology. He tightened
his lips. While he loved both Kyalynn and Weryl-and Dyliess, his daughter
by Ryba-having been an involuntary and ignorant stud still grated on his
nerves.
аа Yet what could he do? He had to admit Ryba had been right about the
cultures that surrounded them, and angels weren't exactly welcomed
anywhere. Nor did he feel right even thinking about leaving his children,
whether he'd been an involuntary stud or not.
аа Yet Ryba was getting harder and harder to take, and each day felt like
a balancing act. Ryba, former captain of the U.F.F. Winterlance, was now
Marshal of Westwind, and undisputed ruler of that chunk of the Westhorns
known as the Roof of the World-a land so high and cold that very few of
the locals could survive more than short stretches outside in full
winter. Then, Ryba and all of the surviving ship's marines-now the guards
of Westwind-were full-blooded Sybran, born to an even colder heritage
than the Roof of the World, unlike Nylan and Ayrlyn.
аа Nylan shook his head and removed his jacket, hanging it on one of the