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

"We're halfway there now, aren't we?" mused Pallarynd, to himself as much as the knight.
"Yes," Brigit said, with a soft smile at the young elf beside the priest. The little fellow squinted, still
suspicious, but at least his hand fell away from the knife. The cleric squeezed his shoulder and the boy took
the older elf's hand.
Pallarynd turned to his people. The Thy-Tach pressed close to hear his words. "To think we have come
safely to Synnoria, the outpost of our people on the Moonshae Islands! The Fey-Alamtine has led us here,
and when it is time, it shall lead us on the final leg of our migration as we travel to the eternal elvenhome,
Evermeet!"
The Thy-Tach elves, in their ragged leggings and woods-brown tunics, whispered quietly among
themselves. Their losses were too recent, and too horrifying, for the elves to feel any joy. Yet as the sister
knight turned back down the valley, their relief was palpable to Brigit. She urged Talloth into a fleet canter.
The Thy-Tach would find shelters, beds, and food awaiting them when they reached Chrysalis.

* * * * *

The keen bow of the Coho sliced the smooth waters of Corwell Firth. Under the steady eye of her
captain, Brandon of Gnarhelm, the small longship glided toward the narrow harbor mouth a mile or two
away. Soon they passed the breakwater, gliding toward the dock at the conclusion of a smooth five-day
journey from Callidyrr.
Two women stood in the bow of the ship. One of them was heavyset, with a smile as broad as the sun
and a merry twinkle in her eyes, seemingly amused by everything they saw. The woman's hair was gray,
tied in a bun behind her neck, and the wrinkles lining her face gave a grandmotherly cast to her age, but she
stood at the gunwale with one foot balanced on the rail, as light on her feet as any young sailor. Around her
shoulders was strapped a dark-grained harp, silver strings winking in the sunlight, and a smooth,
well-polished body shimmering from the reflections of the waves.
The second woman was much younger, and strikingly beautiful. Her fair hair, like straw tinted with
copper, trailed behind her in the wind, but though her lips creased into a smile at the sight of her family
home, her good humor did not extend to her eyes. She looked up at the castle, rising above the town and the
firth on its rocky knoll, and she missed her father more than ever.
"LookтАФthere's Lord Pawldo!" announced Tavish, the bard.
The diminutive figure of the halfling, clad in an elegant blue waistcoat and shiny, high-topped black boots,
waved enthusiastically from the wharf. As the skilled northmen crew, with a few strokes of the oars,
brought the vessel bumping gently against the dock, the Lord Mayor Pawldo of Lowhill, longtime friend of
the Kendrick family, rushed up to the princess and embraced her. Alicia bravely tried not to cry, but this
was the first time she had seen her old friend since her father's death. She couldn't bear the embrace of the
halfling, such a great companion of her father's, without shedding tears of grief.
"There, there, child," whispered Pawldo, and for a brief moment, Alicia felt like a little girl. The strength
of his shoulder to cry on was a great relief.
But in another moment, she stepped back and wiped her eyes. Pawldo gave her a hand as she stepped
up from the hull onto the dock, and again she was a High Princess, returned to the town of her family's
clan.
The Ffolk were not a great people to observe formality and ceremony, so there was no turnout of the
castle guard or any such display at the wharf. Earl Randolph was present, however, and he quickly joined
Pawldo in greeting Alicia and her party.
The earl had been a young captain who fought for King Kendrick twenty years earlier, in the
Darkwalker War. When Tristan went to rule in Callidyrr, he appointed the loyal warrior as seneschal in
Corwell, and later made him an earl. Now Randolph's eyes, too, were moist as he bowed to the princess.
She introduced her companions as they climbed from the Coho's shallow hull.
"Do you recall young Hanrald Blackstone?" she asked Randolph. "Now the Earl of Fairheight?" Hanrald
bowed formally, then extended a hand to his fellow earl.