"Douglas Niles - Druidhome 2 - The Coral Kingdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niles Douglas)

"IndeedтАФyour service to our lady princess has been well told by the bards!" proclaimed Randolph. "It is
an honor to have you as my guest."
"And Brandon Olafsson, Prince of Gnarhelm," continued Alicia. "He provides us with the fast
transportтАФand more, for without his aid, we would not have broken the thrall of the Stormbringer."
"King Kendrick has done our people a lasting service when he made peace with the northmen," said
Randolph, bowing with easy grace to the prince. "My honor is doubled to have such an esteemed ally as
another guest!"
Brandon flushed in embarrassment. Such niceties of diplomacy always discomfited him. "Well, thank
you," he finally remembered to say. "And the transportation might have been faster," he reminded Alicia, "if
we'd had the use of my own Gullwing."
The prince's eyes swept the horizon wistfully, as if he expected that proud longship, sunk by the tempest
of Talos the Stormbringer, to come sailing toward them. Alicia knew that one of Brandon's countrymen had
willingly given him use of the Coho, but the love he had felt for his own vessel was clearly lacking with the
new longship.
"Your mother will arrive soon?" inquired Earl Randolph, drawing Alicia's attention.
"Yes. She rides the wind now, as she did when she was younger. The love of the Earthmother, I think, is
the only thing that lifts her spirits."
"And your sister?" inquired Randolph, with a meaningful look along the hull of the longship. The rest of
the crew, longhaired northmen sailors to the last unshaven face, stared back. It was quite obvious that
Princess Deirdre was not present.
"She, too, arrives under powers other than sail," Alicia said, mildly irritated at the thought of Deirdre's icy
arrogance when she had declined Brandon's invitation to sail on the Coho. Her younger sister's dalliance
with magic seemed to Alicia to be a vexing pastime. It annoyed her that Deirdre planned to teleport from
Alaron to Gwynneth. Still, Alicia had trouble understanding the stark concern that others, notably Keane
and Robyn, had expressed about Deirdre's mysterious powers.
"Many of the lords have gathered," noted the earl, pointing to the field full of colorful tents that lay
between the town and the castle. Different banners flew from many, and at first glance, Alicia saw the
boar of Lord Koart and the unicorn of Dynnatt, two of the local cantrevs. Farther away streamed the white
banner of King Truac of Snowdown. Soon all the lords and kings of the Ffolk would be gathered for the
High Queen's court.
And above the field rose Caer Corwell, with its partially completed stone wall joining the wooden
palisade. The towers of the keep rose beyond the wall, and the whole structure crowded the steep-sided
knoll that placed it in command of all the ground for miles in every direction.
Suddenly the little castle seemed like home to herтАФa home she missed very much. Though she had
spent most of her life living in Caer Callidyrr, her time in Corwell had included many idyllic summers. Now,
as that season came once again to the Moonshaes, she wanted nothing quite so much as to pass through
those great doors and enter the cooling shelter of the family hall.

* * * * *

Talos the Stormbringer, god of maelstrom and cyclone, deity of destruction and chaos, brooded
malevolently as he pondered his lust for revenge. A monstrously powerful god, Talos was not used to
frustration, yet a short while ago, when he had thought that he stood at the brink of his mightiest
accomplishment, he had instead suffered the greatest defeat in a long and combative existence.
The crux of his hatred, and his defeat, was the island group called the Moonshaes and the people known
as the Ffolk. These enchanted isles were places of sublime and ancient power, but power that had of late
drifted in a vacuum. A yawning space had beckoned the Destructor like a bottomless pit, urging his own
claim to the lands and seas.
And so Talos had sent Coss-Axell-Sinioth, his most trusted servant, a vile being of corrupt origins and
deepest evil, to plant the seeds of war in the land. Talos also enlisted the aid of undersea minions, the