"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 1 - Lure Of The Basilisk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

"He is to be found in the King's Inn, clad in yellow rags."
"How long must I serve him?"
Ao drew a deep breath, paused, and said, "You weary us with your
questions; we will answer no more." She turned and hobbled out of sight into
the darkness of the cave, the darkness that concealed her sister Ta and their
humble living facilities.
The warrior stood respectfully motionless as the oracle withdrew, then
turned east, toward where the last rays of sunlight lit the iced-in port of
Ordunin and the cold sea beyond, and started thoughtfully down the hillside.
CHAPTER ONE

The village of Skelleth was the northernmost limit of human civilization, a
perpetually starving huddle of farmers and ice-cutters. It shrank with each
succeeding ten-month winter. Its existence depended equally on the goats and
hay of the farmers and on the declining trade in ice to cool the drinks of
wealthy nobles to the south. This trade brought to the decaying community
those many necessities they could not obtain from their own land, but was less
each year as fewer of the ice-caravans survived the ravages of brigands and
bankruptcy.
Although Skelleth was universally acknowledged as the limit of human
civilization, both humans and civilization could be found further north. The
humans, however, were either the goat-herding nomads of the plains and
foothills or the barbaric hunters and trappers of the snow-covered mountains,
who were all too fond of banditry and murder and could hardly be called
examples of civilization; the civilization was that of the overmen of the
Northern Waste, driven there by the Racial Wars of three centuries before, and
they were most assuredly not human.
It was because of these last that the Baron of Skelleth had seen fit to
make the North Gate the only portion of the crumbling city wall to be guarded,
although none of Skelleth's meager trade passed through the North Gate, even
the wild trappers preferring to use the more accessible gates to east and west
on their rare trading expeditions. At any hour, night or day, one of
Skelleth's three dozen men-at-arms could be found huddled over a watch-fire in
the shelter of the one remaining wall of the fallen gatehouse-assuming that
the man assigned had not deserted his post. This cold and unrewarding duty
made a convenient punishment for any guard who chanced to run afoul of the
moody Baron's whims, and so was usually the lot of the younger and more
cheerful among the company, as the Baron was prone to consider it a mortal
offense should anyone be happy when he himself was sunk in one of his frequent
and incapacitating fits of black depression.
Thus it was that Arner, youngest and most daring of the guard, was
ordered to stand twenty-four hours of guard duty without relief at this
unattractive spot; and it was scarcely surprising that the youth should
abandon his post and be asleep in his sweetheart's arms when, for the first
time in memory, someone did approach Skelleth down the ancient Wasteland Road.
Thus it was that Garth rode into Skelleth unannounced and unopposed,
astride his great black warbeast, past the wide ring of abandoned, ruined
homes and streets into the inhabited portion, his steel helmet glinting in the
morning sunlight, his crimson cloak draped loosely across his shoulders. His
gaze was fixed straight ahead, ignoring the ragged handful of villagers who