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

who had been forced to become outlaws because of the injustices of the former
king. He had dis-
DOUGLAS NILES
banded the few remaining mercenaries of the king's private army, the Scarlet
Guard. The battles of the Ffolk, he had declared, would from now on be fought
by the Ffolk.
With his ascension to the throne had come the discovery of the vast surplus in
the High King's treasury, piles of silver coins, and some gold, which he had
been able to return to the overtaxed lords of the land. This act alone would
have done much to assure his popularity with the lords, but his wisdom and
good judgment in settling the other disputes had insured their loyalty to his
name,
"I'm glad I stayed, too," she sighed. "I know it was important to you, and to
all the isles. You will make a splendid king.
"But all the while, I could not help wondering about the druids. Are they
suffering? Are they dead? I wish I could have been both places at once. I know
I cannot rest easily until I have seen evil excised from Myrloch Vale!"
Suddenly Tristan stiffened, lifting himself to the balls of his feet to peer
in the distance. He squinted against the spray, and saw it again: a flash of
crimson against the all-encompassing gray of sea and sky.
Robyn sensed his change in mood, and she followed his gaze, staring a few
degrees to starboard of the bow. A foot shorter than the young king, she could
not see what had alarmed him.
"Northmen," he grunted, pointing. She saw the flicker of color now. It could
only be the square sail of a raiding long-ship, and it was facing them.
"Keep an eye on it. I'll inform the captain." Turning and sprinting like a
seasoned sailor down the pitching deck, the new High King of the Moonshaes
barked a warning to the laboring crewmen.
Robyn turned back to the south as the longship drew closer. She could now make
out a second sail beside the first, veering to the side. The sleek vessels
spread apart to block the Defiants path at either side. Some voice inside her
said that she should be afraid, that these were dangerous and bloodthirsty
foes. But instead she felt only a quiet anger as she faced another obstacle on
the road to rescue Genna
*28
DARKWELL
Moonsinger, the Great Druid of all the Moonshaes.
But this was an obstacle she could counter.
By the time Tristan returned to the bow, she had unlashed her staff from its
mount on the gunwale. Captain Dans-forth, the taciturn master of the Defiant,
regarded the approaching vessels through his long spying tube. The crew, two
dozen steadfast Ffolk of Callidyrr, turned as a man to regard the raiders but
maintained the course and sail of the Defiant without a hitch.
She was called the stoutest vessel, with the ablest crew, among the four
kingdoms of the Ffolk. The proof had come when they sailed into the late
stages of an autumn gale that would have kept any other vessel of the Ffolk in
port. Racing through the Sea of Moonshae around the northern tip of Gwynneth,
the Defiant had coursed through the Strait of Oman. Now they sailed south
toward Corwell itself.
These northmen were obviously returning homeтАФit was already later than the