"Ringo, John - Council Wars 1 - There Will Be Dragons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

was unclear, just as the crime for which he had been accused was buried under
privacy restrictions, but as soon as he entered the recreationist sub-culture
the reason for his problems became obvious: Dionys was just bug-house nuts.
He had started his career in recreationism by trying to force a duel with the
King of Avalonia. Since the king had no reason to accept the challenge of a duel
from a person who hadn't even won his spurs, he rather pointedly declined.
Dionys then proceeded to start a whisper campaign against the king, accusing him
of everything from cowardice to pedophilia. At the same time he began gathering
a group of henchmenЧwho were immediately dubbed "The Young Louts"Чand used them
to sow discord far and wide in Avalonia. Throughout this period he either
avoided tournaments or participated only against the weakest possible opponents,
especially when the rules permitted enhanced weaponry. With excellent
power-blades and his Changed size, he swiftly crushed all his opponents.
Finally the situation reached a condition of crisis and the king banished him
from the kingdom. Not content to rest in banishment, Dionys continued his
verbal, political and physical assaults from the fringes of the group until the
king eventually gave up and agreed to a personal combat.
However, due to the ability for people to Change and enhance, formal challenge
had changed over the years. What Dionys did not realize was that in such a
challenge, the Net, which had full access to Change data, determined handicaps
based upon the degree of Change of each fighter. It went without saying that
enhanced weaponry was banned.
When he went into battle against the king, McCanoc's absolutely mundane armor
and weapons were loaded down with nearly a hundred kilos of weight.
Because of his avoidance of the challenge ladder, it was unclear how good
McCanoc might have been. His few battles had ended in massacres, but they were
always against lighter, unskilled opponents. Whatever his actual ability, the
challenge against the King of Avalonia was brief. The two met in ground combat
against one another, both using Ropasan broadsword, mail and shield. Their
swords, befitting the ritual nature of the challenge, had blunting fields on
them and the battle was decided on points.
Despite that fact, Dionys was not only defeated but defeated quite bloodily. The
King of Avalonia had been in a thousand similar battles over the previous
century or twain and he knew every legal trick, and most of the illegal ones. He
used them to not only win on points, but win in such a way that Dionys was going
to remember the pain for some time. At the least he was never again going to
consider a shield as a purely defensive weapon. When McCanoc stumbled off the
field his helmet was streaming blood out onto his armor. He teleported out and
wasn't seen on the fields again for months.
That had been nearly a year before and only in the last few months had the Louts
and their ringleader been seen. This time Dionys seemed serious about moving up
the challenge ladder and had been fighting opponents who were of similar mass.
As it turned out, he was fairly good. But since his opponents tended to have
weaponry that was just as enhanced as his, when enhanced weapons were permitted,
he was moving up the ladder very slowly.
Which appeared to be the problem.
"I want you to make me a set of turbo armor and a power sword," the fighter
said.
Talbot couldn't help himself; he laughed out loud.
"You have to be joking," the smith finally chuckled. "Why on Earth would I make