"Douglas Niles - Forgotten Realms - Moonshae 03 - Darkwell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niles Douglas)

DARKWELL
by Douglas Niles

What Has Gone Before

Tristan Kendrick, Prince of Corwell, stood upon the brink of manhood when the
Beast, Kazgoroth, emerged from its fetid pool to savage the land. The
insidious monster, often disguised in the flesh of a man, engaged the help of
firbolg giants and savage northmen to attack the Ffolk of Corwell.
The prince came of age during this, the Darkwalker War. He returned a lost
artifact, the Sword of Cymrych Hugh, to his people. He led them to ultimate
victory against the Beast. And he found his life's love in the person of
Robyn, a maiden who had been raised with him as the king's ward.
Also during the war, Robyn discovered her own deep powers as a druid,
harnessing the forces of the earth to work magic and miracles. She loved the
prince but faced a deeper calling after the war. She journeyed to pastoral
Myrloch Vale to study the ways of her order under the Great Druid of the
isles, Genna Moonsinger.
But there she found that the influence of Kazgoroth was not altogether
banished. An unnatural army of corpses invaded the vale, and Robyn alone of
the druids escaped. The others were imprisoned as stone statues around the
scene of their last stand, and as Robyn departed, the vale was turned into a
wasteland behind her.
His father murdered, Tristan Journeyed to the neighboring island of CaUidyrr
to confront the High King of all the Ffolk. Caught in a rebellion and finally
joined by Robyn, Tristan found himself once more victorious, receiving the
royal Crown of the Isles. He was crowned High King by the Ffolk, then prepared
to return to Corwell.
But still the evil lurked in Myrloch Vale. . . .
The goddess Earthmother wept, her wound a gaping slash across her flesh. The
cut was deep, perhaps mortal, but there was none to know her suffering.
She cried out in pain from the scar of black magic, where her body lay torn
and ripped from the assault of evil. Though the last convulsion of her power
had excised the rot, tearing it from herself and allowing the cool sea towash
the wound, still the pain continued.
The goddess cried out for her servants, her devoted druids. These human
caretakers were trapped in a prison of the mother's own invention. They stood
frozen as stone statues around the blasted scene of their final defeat. The
protection of the goddess had imprisoned them thus, saving them at least from
death. One druid, and one alone, had escaped petrification.
And the goddess wept for the Ffolk, her people. War ra v-aged their fair land
relentlessly, striking each of the four kingdoms with cruel force. Many Ffolk
died while resisting the attack ofnorthman or foul beast, but still peace
eluded them.
Now her grief manifested itself in the glowering clouds that hung low over the
isles, and the unnatural chill that sucked the summer's warmth from the land
and, though the season was but early autumn, brought a winterlike frost. Her
pain sent whirlwinds exploding from her soul, twisting funnels of violence
that tore at the land, unmindful of the hurt they caused.
Yet the land was not altogether without hope. For the first