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

thought of disobeying their father troubled him. The scene below them was
busy, but the clamor of the previous weeks had ceased and the sound of sledge,
pick and wedge no longer assaulted the ears. The workers were cleaning up the
site and the last of the freed metal was being
6 John Maddox Roberts
melted in the furnaces to free it of the last bits of concrete matrix. The
molten steel was then cast into ingots for easy transportation. Prodigious
effort was expended each year to bring fuel, supplies and laborers to this
site, but steel was so valuable that King Hael bore the expense gladly.
Around the rim of the crater, mounted men patrolled constantly. Workers were
not allowed to ascend to the rim save where the path notched its edge. They
were allowed only in the crater and the camp. Any who were caught trying to
get to high ground to spot landmarks were assumed to be spies and punished
accordingly.
"Well, what do you say?" urged the elder brother.
"Don't press me, Ansa. This will take some thought. We have three days yet.''
"During which time you will decide to remain a dutiful son, no doubt. Well,
you may do as you like. I am riding south as soon as the season ends."
Kairn was thoughtful as they rode back to their tent at the end of the day. It
vexed him to admit that he lacked an adventurous spirit. He was almost
eighteen, and had been a warrior for more than two years. Perhaps it took more
than fine weapons and a cabo to ride to make a warrior. He patted the beast's
neck and it tossed its handsome, four-horned head proudly. All around him
exhausted workers trudged toward their pallets. These were short, dark men,
strongly built but without the fierce poise of the mounted warriors.
Kairn shuddered at the thought of leading such a life, toiling on the land or
at some other equally ignoble labor instead of riding free across the endless
plain. Surely, he thought, he would die before living like that. These were
the stolid peasants of the southern lands, for whom his desert was just a
hotter, drier place to work. They endured the hardship in return for generous
pay, half of which would be claimed by their sovereigns. They deserved no
better, he supposed. Men so spiritless that they would not fight should
THE POISONED LANDS 7
be grateful for any crumbs dropped to them from the tables of their betters.
He curried his cabo and turned it loose in the circular compound walled with
piled rock. With a happy snort it trotted to the watering trough. Every drop
was laboriously brought from the nearest river in wagon-mounted casks. The
animals got as much as they needed. Men had to make do with less. There were
more than three hundred of the creatures hi the pen, each animal's horns
painted with the distinctive colors and patterns favored by its rider.
Under the shade of the open-sided tent, the temperature was just bearable. The
half-dozen warriors within made space for Kairn, but they paid him no special
deference. The riders did not understand royalty as it was practiced in more
settled nations. He was passed a water skin and he took a handful of dried
food from a communal bowl. As he munched the tasteless mixture of pounded
dried meat, fruit and parched grain, he thought of the cities of the south.
He had never seen them, but he had heard his father's stories of the fabulous
lands to the west and south. Older warriors who had fought in the king's
wide-ranging campaigns had described the sumptuous cities, their temples and
public buildings, their strange entertainments and their women who (in the