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

any significant forces within a dozen leagues, at the very least.
With the enemy to the south, the sea to the west, and nothing to the east
but forest wilderness clear to the borders of the Northern Empire itself, he
had headed north. He had hoped to get well away from the enemy, then find or
build himself a boat and work his way south along the coast until he reached
the Ethsharitic lines -- surely the enemy could not have driven very far to
the south, certainly not as far as General Gor's fortress. He knew nothing
about boats, but he was reasonably sure that the enemy knew no more than he
did. The Northern Empire was an inland nation; he doubted that there was any
northern navy to worry about.
Unfortunately, the enemy had followed him northward along the shoreline,
not because they knew he was there, but, as best he could guess, because they
were afraid of Ethsharitic landings. He had kept moving north, staying ahead
of the enemy scouts; four times he had settled in one spot long enough to
start work on a raft, but each time a northern patrol had come along and
driven him away long before he had a seaworthy craft.
Finally, four days ago, he had been careless, and a northerner who moved
with the inhumanly smooth grace and speed of a shatra had spotted him. He had
been running ever since, snatching naps when he could and using every ruse he
could think of and every spell in his pouch.
 He pulled off his right sock and wrung it out, then draped it on the
grass to dry; he knew that it would just get wet again when he moved on, as he
would have to do quickly, but while he rested he wanted it dry. He was tugging
at his left sock when he heard the rustle of grass. He froze.
The sound came again, from somewhere behind him, to the north -- he had
seated himself facing back the way he had come so as to have a better chance
of spotting his pursuers.
It didn't seem likely that even shatra could have circled around behind
him already. Perhaps, he told himself, it was just a bird or an animal of some
sort. Carefully, with his right foot bare and his left sock hanging halfway
off, he rose, trying not to rustle, and peered through the waving stalks.
Something tall was moving about, something dark gray and pointed at the
top. Not shatra, or at least not the sort he was familiar with; they
customarily wore round, close-fitting helmets that covered almost the entire
head. Enemy sorcerers usually wore similar black helmets festooned with
talismans, and the common soldiers made do with whatever they could scrounge
up -- most often ancient, rusty relics passed down through generations of
warfare. This gray object did not look like any of those. It didn't look like
a helmet at all; it looked like a cloth hat.
He wondered whether it might be some unfamiliar variety of beast, perhaps
a magically created one or some odd kind of small dragon. He had seen pointed
hats; they had once, he understood, been the standard issue for wizards until
someone pointed out that they made excellent targets, but he could not imagine
what one would be doing here, far to the north and west of anything resembling
civilization. Who would be wearing such a thing in a marsh on the edge of
nowhere?
He sank back to the ground and pulled his left sock back up, ignoring the
fact that it was still soaking wet, and then pulled on his other sock and both
boots.
The rustling noise continued; whatever the tall thing with the gray point