"David Weber - Empire of Man 02 - March to the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

"Yep," Roger agreed. "How'd I do?"
"We got pockтАФ We got screwed."
"Hey," Roger said defensively. "Those things are priceless up here!"
"Yeah," Poertena agreed. "But t'ey takin' tee money down t'ere. We prob'ly pay twice what they
flar-ta is worth. T'at more money than t'ey ever see in t'eir po . . . in their lives."
"True," Roger said. "I'm glad that Cranla went with them. Maybe he can keep people from taking it
before they buy their new mounts."
"Sure," the armorer complained. "But now I out a fourth for spades. What I gonna do 'bout t'at?"
"Spades?" Roger asked. "What's spades?"
 ***
"I can' believe I get taken by my own pocking prince," Poertena grumped much later as he and Denat
watched Roger walk away, whistling cheerfully while he counted his winnings.
"Well," Cord's nephew told him with a remarkable lack of sympathy, "you keep telling us there's a
new sucker born every minute. You just didn't get around to mentioning that you were one of them!"
***
Cord raised the flap of the cover as the flar-ta came to a halt. The three remaining Mardukans had
ridden the big packbeasts for the last several days while the humans had searched for a path through the
mountains. To avoid the cold and desiccating dryness, the three had huddled under one of the hide tents.
There, in a nest of wet rags, they had spent the day, warmed by the sun on the dark tents.
But as the packbeasts continued to stand motionless, Cord decided to brave the outside conditions.
Pushing aside one of the moistened clumps of dianda, the shaman slipped out from under the tent and
began to walk towards the front of the column, and Roger looked up and smiled as he approached.
"We might have hit a bit of luck," the prince said, gesturing at a pile of rocks. The cairn was clearly
artificial, a fairly large pile of stones at the mouth of one of three valleys diverging from the river they'd
been following.
The humans had been hunting back and forth in the mountains for a week and a half, looking for a
relatively low way across. Several promising valleys had so far yielded only impossibly steep ascents.
This valley would not have been considered promising, since it narrowed abruptly up ahead and bent
sharply to the south out of sight. However, the existence of the cairn was indisputable.
"Could be some traveler's idea of a practical joke," Kosutic said dubiously. The sergeant major
shook her head, looking up the narrow track. "And it'll be a bitch getting the beasts through there."
"But it's the first indication we've had that there's ever been anybody up here," Roger said stubbornly.
"Why would anyone lie about the path?"
Pahner looked up at the path the valley might take.
"Looks like there's a glacier up there," he said. He nodded to the stream roaring out of the valley.
"See how white the water is, Your Highness?"
"Yes," Roger said. "Oh. Yeah. I've seen that before."
"Snowmelt?" Kosutic asked.
"Glacial runoff," Pahner corrected. "Dust particles from the glacier grinding the mountains. At least
part of this stream has its origin in a glacier." He looked at Cord and then back at the flar-ta. "I don't see
them being able to make it in glacial conditions."
"There is that," Roger admitted, looking up at the snowy caps. "But we still need to check it out."
"Not we," Pahner said. "Sergeant Major?"
"Gronningen," she said instantly. "He's from Asgard, so he could care less about cold." She paused
and thought. "Dokkum is from New Tibet. He should know something about mountains. And I'll take
Damdin, too."
"Do it," Pahner said. "We'll make a solid camp here in the meantime." He looked around at the
coniferlike trees. "At least there's plenty of wood."
***
Kosutic looked around the narrow defile with critical eyes. In the week since they'd started up the