"Elizabeth Moon - Paksenarrion 1 - The Sheepfarmer's Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

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Elizabeth Moon - The Deed of Paksenarrion [vol 1] Sheepfarmer's Daughter


book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or
incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright ┬й 1992 by Elizabeth Moon
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this
book or portions thereof in any form.
Baen Publishing Enterprises PO Box 1403 Riverdale, NY
10471
ISBN: 0-671-72104-6 Cover art by Keith Parkinson
First printing, February 1992 Second printing, February
1992 Third printing, January 1995 Fourth printing,
November 1997
Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the
Americas
New York, NY 10020
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Deed Of Paksenarrion has been published in slightly
different form as Sheepfarmer's Daughter, copyright ┬й
1988, Divided Allegiance, copyright ┬й 1988, and Oath of
Gold, copyright ┬й 1989.




Prologue

In a sheepfarmer's low stone house, high in the hills
above Three Firs, two swords hang now above the
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Elizabeth Moon - The Deed of Paksenarrion [vol 1] Sheepfarmer's Daughter


mantelpiece. One is very old and slightly bent, a sword
more iron than steel, dark as a pot: forged, so the tale
runs, by the smith in Rocky Ford тАФ yet it is a sword, for
all that, and belonged to Kanas once, and tasted orcs'
blood and robbers' blood in its time. The other is a very
different matter: long and straight, keen-edged, of the
finest sword-steel, silvery and glinting blue even in
yellow firelight. The pommel's knot design is centered
with the deeply graven seal of St. Gird; the cross-hilts are
gracefully shaped and chased in gold.
The children of that place look at both swords with awe,
and on some long winter nights old Dorthan, grandfather
of fathers and graybeard now, takes from its carved chest