"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Fey 02 - The Rival" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

The leader of the Hawk Riders, Talon, clicked his fingernails together. The
Riders grabbed their lines to prevent the ropes from tangling. Rugad kept
his harness on it was too difficult to reassemble and stepped forward until
he could see through the crevice.

A valley spread before him, as green and lush as anything he had seen on the
Galinas continent. The air, even at this elevation, had a fertile, marshy
smell. Several villages dotted the valley, looking like insect colonies from
this height.

"The mountains are sheer on the valley side,7 Talon said. His voice was
piercing, and his sibilants whistled through his small mouth.

"But they are only half the height. Going down will be easier than coming
up."
Coming up was the problem. Thirty thousand troops, most with little or no
flying ability, scaling the rock face, the frothing ocean below.

"Are there other plateaus like this?" he asked.

"No," Talon said.

"Not within a reasonable distance."

Rugad nodded. Only a hundred men could fit here at any given time.

That would slow the progress into the valley tremendously.

"And what is directly below?" he asked.

"A town of perhaps four hundred people. I have one of my men watching the
site. These people do not seem to venture toward the mountains."

Rugad cautiously stepped over lines. The wind was strong here, so strong
that he could lose his balance if he weren't careful. He peered down the
side of the plateau, into the crevice, and felt that jolt of fear again.
Nature would be his most formidable opponent here. He had never, in all his
ninety-two years, seen terrain as mighty as this.

He would beat it, as he had beaten all the other challenges that had arisen
in his life. A tiny island in the Inn-in Sea would not stop him. If he live
a normal Fey span, he still had fifty years of life ahead of him. He planned
to live out his old age on the Leut continent, across the sea from Blue Isle.
He would conquer Blue Isle, and half the countries on Leut, and then he
would retire, the greatest Fey leader of all time, the only one to circle
nearly half the globe.

And when he retired, his great-grandson. Jewel's boy, would become Black
King. Rugad had Seen it.