"Margeret Weis & Don Perrin - Dragonlance - The Chaos War 01 - The Doom Brigade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

"You recall that time. How we were pursued by the knights. We headed for the
Kharolis mountainsтАФlong a haven for exiles and outcasts. We reached it, finally, and
found ourselves in the lands controlled by the dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin. The
Knights of Solamnia weren't about to get themselves killed for what was now a
dwarven cause. They left us for the dwarves to handle, and went back to celebrating
their glorious victory.
"It might have gone badly for us, but our numbers were relatively few. We posed
no threat to the heavily fortified underground kingdom of Thorbardin, and so the
Thorbardin dwarves saw no reason to risk their lives chasing us down.
"We made camp in mis valley, nestled in the foothills between Mount Celebund
and Mount Dashinak. Our first objectiveтАФwe built the wall. Our camp turned into a
fortification. The fortification became a village."
Kang sighed deeply. "We have just one problem. We draconians are not farmers.
Homing we plant ever grows. No seed we sow ever bears fruit."
He did not speak the rest, they all knew it. The futile attempts to make anything
grow in the barren ground was a cruel metaphor of their own lives. They were born of
magic. No female draconians existed. Their race would be the first and the last to feel
Krynn's sun warm their scales.
"We would have perished of starvation long ago," Kang admitted, "if it weren't for
the hill dwarves."
The hill dwarves' village was located on the opposite face of the valley, on the side
of Mount Celebund. During the winter, when game was scarce and the draconians
were facing starvation, they did what was necessary for survival. They raided their
neighbor's larder.
"You remember those first raids," Kang said grimly. "Bloody affairs for both sides.
The dwarves suffered the most. With our experience and sheer size, we overpowered
even the best dwarven warriors. Still, we were the ones at the disadvantage. When one
of our warriors falls, he falls for good. There will be no replacementsтАФever."
Before the War of the Lance, the evil clerics of Takhisis had developed the arcane
art of perverting good dragon eggs, changing the unborn baby dragon into a host of
monstrous beings. Using various magicks and sorceries, the evil cleric Wyrllish, the
black-robed mage Dracart, and die ancient red dragon Harkiel the Bender, produced
the warrior race which the armies of Takhisis sorely neededтАФthe draconians.
 The dragon-spawned draconians proved to be so powerful in their strength,
intelligence and cunning, that their creators feared them. Lord Ariakus decided that
the commanders could control the draconians only if they could control their numbers.
He and the other Dragon Highlords forbade the making of females. The draconians
could never breed. The Highlords' elite shock troops had finite numbers. Presumably,
when tile battle was over and the Dark Queen victorious, she would no longer need
the draconians. And by that time, most of them would be dead.
"I watched our people die off in battle with the dwarves," Kang said, "and I knew
that, over time, we would be a people no longer. We would cease to exist. Of course,
we could have wiped out the hill dwarves, but then what? Who would tend the fields
of wheat? Who would raise the sheep? Wo would"тАФKang ran his tongue over
fangsтАФ"distill that concoction of the gods known as dwarf spirits? We'd starve to
death! What's worse, we'd die of thirst!
"The other troop commanders and Fcame up with a possible solution. On our nod
raid, I ordered all weapons left behind. You know what happened. We grabbed the
same number of loaves of bread, snatched up the same amount of chickens, andтАФ
most importantтАФwe made off with the same quantity of dwarf spirits as the 'first raid,