"Michael Moorcock - Elric 3 - The Weird of the White Wolf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)

his only weapon. It looked as if it had been forged
for a giant--Malador was virtually that himself--with
its wide crosspiece and heavy, stone-encrusted hilt
and five-foot blade, smooth and broad. Beside it was
Malador's old, heavy armour, the casque balanced on
top with its somewhat tattered black plumes waving
slightly in a current of air from the window.
Malador slept.

His dreams, as usual, were turbulent: of mighty
armies surging across the blazing landscapes, curling
banners bearing the blazons of a hundred nations,
forests of shining lance-tips, seas of tossing helmets,


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the brave, wild blasts of the war-horns, the clatter of
hooves, and the songs and cries and shouts of sol
diers. These were dreams of earlier times, of his
youth when, for Queen Eloarde of Klant, he had
conquered all the Southern nations--almost to the
edge of the world. Only Kaneloon, on the very edge,
had he not conquered, and this because no army
would follow him there.
For one of so martial an appearance, these dreams
were surprisingly unwelcome, and Malador woke
several times that night, shaking his head in an at-
tempt to rid himself of them.
He would rather have dreamed of Eloarde,
though she was the cause of his restlessness, but he
saw nothing of her in his sleep; nothing of her soft,
black hair that billowed around her pale face, noth-
ing of her green eyes and red lips and her proud,
disdainful posture. Eloarde had assigned him to this
quest and he had not gone willingly, though he had
no choice, for as well as his mistress she was also his
Queen. The Champion was traditionally her lover--
and it was unthinkable to Earl Aubec that any other
condition should exist. It was his place, as Champion
of Klant, to obey and go forth from her palace to
seek Castle Kaneloon alone and conquer it and de-
clare it part of her Empire, so that it could be said
Queen Eloarde's domain stretched from the Dragon
Sea to World's Edge.
Nothing lay beyond World's Edge--nothing save
the swirling stuff of unformed Chaos which stretched
away from the Cliffs of Kaneloon for eternity, roiling
and broiling, multicoloured, full of monstrous half-