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

warrior's stories) always seemed to prefer virile nomads to their effete,
civilized menfolk. He felt the tug of attraction, a curiosity to see those
places, but he also loved the boundless plain. He wanted to see the exotic
cities, but maybe next year would be soon enough, or the year after.
Not so his elder brother. Ansa talked of little else than travel hi foreign
lands. He had ridden on a few caravan escorts to the borders of Omia to the
west and the Canyon territory to the south, and this had whetted his appetite
for more. For the last two years he had fretted to be away, but their father
had sent few missions in that direction recently, being preoccupied with the
east.
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John Maddox Roberts
No, he would return home at the end of this season. It would be good to be
away from this place.
The laborers sang as they left the crater behind. They wore tunics or kilts
that had once been white and most wore head scarves or conical hats of woven
straw. The hornlike soles of their feet seemed to be immune to the heat of the
desert floor, and their teeth flashed white in their dark faces.
Ansa turned for the last time and waved. From the rim of the crater, his
brother waved back. Then Ansa set his face to the south and sternly suppressed
any further sentimental gestures. He cursed his younger brother's timidity and
lack of enterprise. Ansa longed to roam free, but he would have liked company.
The brothers had been close all their lives, especially these last few years,
when their father had grown so preoccupied with the easterners and their
fire-weapons.
But they were boys no longer, he reminded himself. And had King Hael not begun
his career in this very fashion? Early in his life Ansa had wearied of the
story of how his father had come across the mountains with the first trade
caravan from Neva, owning a spear, a knife, a longsword and a single cabo. Now
he was a king. But then, his father was a great visionary, a man touched by
the spirits.
In any case, Ansa had no ambitions to be a king. He just wanted to sample life
away from his familiar world of hills and grasslands. As a boy he had been
impatient and argumentative, unlike his younger brother. He had pushed himself
to excel in the warrior arts and had suifered agonies of frustration at each
slightest failure. A fall at wrestling, which Kairn could laugh off, would
cause Ansa to sulk for days. He was long past such childish moods, but he
yearned to test himself and he saw no sense in waiting.
He fretted at the slow pace of the march. Not only did they have to travel at
the pace of walking men, but the route was tortuous, with many circlings and
switchbacks. At in-
THE POISONED LANDS
9
tervals the workers were blindfolded or made to march after dark. He knew that
it was necessary to keep the men from understanding where they had been, thus
keeping secret the location of the crater, but it was galling to spend ten
days on a march that could have been accomplished in two.
Ansa could have wept with joy on their final day in the desert. The breeze
carried the scent of water and growing things. All up and down the file of
mounted guards the cabos made their strange, rumbling sound of happy