"John Maddox Roberts - Stormlands 03 - The Poisoned Lands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts John Maddox)

within the crater but they had a good view of the camp. When the sun passed
zenith they put away the telescopes lest their position be betrayed by a
reflection. The heat grew terrible but they endured it, sucking occasionally
at their water skins.
When darkness fell, they cast off the blankets and lay gasping gratefully in
the relative coolness. Moving stiffly, they rose and began to fold their
blankets, packing up their telescopes, water skins and other sparse gear.
Before the darkness was complete, one took a reading from a small compass. He
closed the compact instrument's cover and returned it to a pocket in his outer
robe.
"Look, Baffle," said the other man.
Where before only columns of smoke had been visible, they now saw a ruddy glow
and ascending sparks.
"A smelting operation," said Haffie. "there can be no question of it." With
his hood thrown back, he was revealed as a lean man with close-cropped black
hair and a
THE POISONED LANDS 3
stubble of beard. The other man was of different race, short and stout, his
scalp shaven on the left side. The hair on the right side was gathered into a
single plait and dyed blue. Haffle picked up his spear and made to leave the
crag but the other lingered.
"Ingist, we've no time to waste. Come along, we have to find our beasts before
daylight."
"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" Ingist said, staring at the glow as if
hypnotized. "WeVe found it, after men have failed all these years."
"Finding it is one thing," Haffle said. "Living to report it and collect our
reward from the queen is another, so let's be away."
Reluctantly, Ingist picked up his own spear and trudged after his companion.
Except for the short spears, which doubled as walking staffs, the men carried
daggers at their belts but no other arms. To all appearances, they were
traveling traders like hundreds of others who roamed the village-dotted
farmlands along the borders of the southern kingdoms, following the small
rivers and skirting the trackless waste of the desert. Popular legend filled
the desert with mysteries and marvels, but these two had found little in their
many expeditions except rock, sand, heat and thirst. Until this day.
They had followed hints and rumors, interrogated men who claimed to have seen
this marvel, offered bribes and had even consulted seers and fortune-tellers
to find this site. In the end they had found an injured workman, desperate for
money to buy medicine. He claimed that he had worked for a season at the mine,
and had not been fooled by the circuitous route he and the other workers had
trodden. He had managed to shift his blindfold from time to time, and spot
certain landmarks. The crater was not in the deep desert at all, he told them,
but rather was located near the cultivated lands at the northern border of
Canyon territory.
They had killed the man to prevent his telling others, and
4 John Maddox Roberts
had followed his directions to the crater that was so like the many others,
except for this one unique quality. As they trudged toward the place where
they had left the rest of their little caravan and their desert-traveling
bumpers, their hearts thrilled to the knowledge they now held. They had found