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

"See yoa for dinner, sir," Slith said, and left his com-mander to his black mood.
Kang put away his armor and harness. By force of habit, he cleaned his already
clean sword before re-sheathing it and hung the belt on a hook near the door.
He went to bed, to rest through the heat of the day, the heat that was so very
unusual for midsummer in the mountains. He did not sleep, but lay, eyes open, staring
at the ceiling.
Slith had a point.
"What does it matter after we die?" Kang asked the buzzing flies. "What indeed?"


Chapter Three


The four dwarves ran along a hunting trail that zigzagged through the tinder-dry
meadow grass. Though it was early morning still, the sun beat on their iron helms like
Reorx's hammer. Three were wearing leather armor and heavy boots and sweating
profusely. The fourth was clad in a belted tunic, breeches and soft cloth slippers,
known disparagingly among the dwarves as "kender shoes," because, supposedly,
they permitted the wearer to move as stealthily as a kender. This fourth dwarf was
relatively cool and quite comfortable.
The dwarves had done well for themselves on the raid that morning. One held a
small lamb over his neck, grasping it by its legs. Two carried a large crate between
them. The fourth dwarf carried nothing, which also accounted for the fact that he was
enjoying the walk.
One of the dwarves hefting the heavy, rattling crate noticed this singularity.
Huffing and puffing from the heat and his exertion, the dwarf complained.
"Hey, Selquist, what are we? Your pack horses? Come here and give us a hand."
"Now, Auger," replied the dwarf, fixing his companion with a stern eye, "you
know that I have a bad back."
 "I know you can crawl through windows without any trouble," Auger grumbled.
"And you can move pretty fast when you have to, like when that draconian came at us
with the club. I never see you hobbling around or crippled up."
"That's because I take care of myself," said Selquist.
"He does that, all right," grumbled another of the dwarves to his companion.
Any well-traveled person on Ansalon could have told at a glance that these were
hill dwarves, as opposed to their cousins the mountain dwarves. At least, the traveled
person could have said that about three of the dwarves. They had nondescript brown
hair, light brown skin and the ruddy cheeks that come of being raised from childhood
up on the healthful properties of nut-ale.
The fourth dwarf, whose name was Selquist (his mother, somethingof a romantic,
had named him after an elven hero in a popular bard's tale; no one is quite certain
why), might have given the traveler pause. He appeared to fit into no specific
category. His domes were similar to those of his fellows, a shade less tidy, perhaps.
He wore a ring, rather battered, of a metal that he claimed was silver. This dwarfтАФ
youngish, considered lean among his stout fellowsтАФalso said the ring was magic. No
one had ever witnessed any evidence of this, although all would admit that Selquist
was quite good at performing at least one trick: making other people's personal
possessions disappear.
"Besides, Mortar, my friend," Selquist added, "I, too, am carrying somethingтАФa
most valuable treasure. If my hands aren't free, how will I defend it in case we're