"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 1 - The Misenchanted Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

unfair for a single enemy soldier to have both advantages, but life, he knew,
was sometimes very unfair.
Nobody knew exactly what shatra were capable of, but it was generally
believed that they possessed magically acute senses -- though not, probably,
up to the level a good sorcerer could achieve. Valder had to assume that the
northerners chasing him could see and hear and smell far better than he could.
He had managed to stay ahead of the enemy patrol for four days now, but
it had been due to luck as much as to anything else. He had exhausted his last
few prepared spells in diverting the pursuit, but none of the diversions had
lasted very long, and his company's wizard had not provided him with anything
useful for actual combat. Valder was supposed to be a scout, after all; his
job, if he encountered the enemy, had been to run back to base camp to warn
his superiors, not to fight. He was not interested in a glorious death in
combat. He was just another of Ethshar's three million conscript soldiers
trying to survive, and, for an ordinary human against shatra, that meant
flight.
He had been able to travel at night as he fled because the greater moon
had been almost full when the chase began, but the wizard-sight he had been
given when he first went out on his routine solo patrol had worn off six
nights ago.
Thick morning fogs had helped him, as much as the moon had; he was
running blind to begin with, with no intended destination, and therefore was
not concerned about losing his way in the mist, so long as he didn't walk off
a cliff. His pursuers, however, had had to grope carefully along his trail,
using their sorcerous tracking a few steps at a time. They did not seem to
have any unnatural means of penetrating the fog, either sorcerous or demonic.
And, of course, the enemy had stopped for meals every so often, or for
water, while he had had no need of food or drink. That was the only bit of
wizardry he still had going for him, the only spell remaining; if that were to
wear off, he knew he would be doomed. His outfit's wizard had known his job,
though, and Valder had so far felt not the slightest twinge of hunger or
thirst. He felt the charmed bloodstone in his belt pouch, making certain it
was still secure.
Now, though, he had come to this stinking salt marsh and he wondered if
his luck had run out. He settled himself on the grassy hummock and pulled his
boots off, letting the foul water run out.
His luck had really run out two months ago, he decided, when the enemy
had launched a surprise offensive out of nowhere and cut through to the sea,
driving the Ethsharitic forces back down the coast, away from the forests and
into the open plain. It had been phenomenally bad luck for Valder to have been
out on solo patrol, checking the woods for signs of the enemy, when the
assault came.
He had been looking for saboteurs and guerrillas, not the whole northern
army.
Valder still did not understand how the enemy had cut through so quickly;
all he knew was that, when he headed back toward camp, he had found
northerners marching back and forth across the smoldering ruins of his home
base, between himself and the Ethsharitic lines. He had encountered no scouts,
no advance units, had had no warning. The fact that he had been sent out
alone, in itself, indicated that his superiors hadn't thought the enemy had