"Andre Norton - Oak, Yew, Ash & Rowan 3 - A Crown Disowned" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Tusser stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded. "We two not alone. I have men also."

"I thought you had. Better call them."
With Tusser and a half dozen of his warriors close behind, Rohan approached the scene that Weyse had
described to Granddam Zaz. He could immediately see that it was even worse than he had thought.

They were on the outskirts of the ruined city of Galinth, a place Rohan had visited before in the company
of Zazar, Ashen, and Gaurin. Now four men clad in nondescript clothing seemed bent on burning what
was left of it. No wonder

Weyse, whose home this was, had come running to Zazar for aid.

Tusser gave a hand signal, and his followers crouched down, eyeing the scene as warily as did he and
Rohan. "Make fire on water," Tusser observed. "I hear about this once before."

"When?"

"When still just spear man for Joal. Father," he explained as Rohan looked at him quizzically. "They go
after Outlander girl once one of us, find more

Outlanders. Take away. They burn water."

Rohan thought a moment. "Ashen," he said.

"Yes, Ashen." Then Tusser turned to stare at Rohan. "You know Ashen?"

"She married my father," Rohan said, wondering how to explain the tangled circumstances to somebody
as untutored as the Bog-man. "She is my foster-mother."

Tusser nodded. Apparently the notion of fostering was not an unfamiliar one to the Bog-people. "She
Outlander demon spawn, Joal say. She lives?"

Rohan decided not to give any more details than necessary. "Yes."

"Not want kill Ashen. Once maybe, when she make me want woman. Forbidden. Not kill now, though.
Maybe later. We attack now?" He indicated the four men out in the open.

"I think this is just a small part of them. Look there."

To the west, a plume of black, oily smoke was rising. Another began to boil upward just a little way east.
The crackle of dry, cold trees and underbrush filled the air. Tusser made another signal and one of his
warriors silently fell back and vanished the way they had come.

Going for aid, Rohan thought. It seemed a good idea under the circumstances.

The ones Rohan and Tusser were observing had finished opening bags and spreading what these bags
contained over both land and water. One of the men held a container Rohan recognized as the kind used
to carry live coals, and he was now trying to light a twig from it.

"Better be ready to pole for our lives once I get it going," one of them said.