"Cook, Glen - Black Company 10 - Soldiers Live" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

wizard's friends raised it after they completed their own
places. Before that One-Eye and his girlfriend, Tobo's
grandmother Gota, lived in an ugly, smelly little stick-and-mud
hut. The new place was of mortared stone. It had a first rate
thatch roof above its four large rooms, one of which concealed a
still. One-Eye might be too old and feeble to weasel his way into
the local black market but I am sure he will continue distilling
strong spirits till the moment his own spirit departs his wizened
flesh. The man is dedicated.

Gota kept the house spotless via the ancient device of bullying
her daughter Sahra into doing the housework. Gota, still called the
Troll by the old hands, was as feeble as One-Eye. They were a
matched pair in their passion for potent beverages. When One-Eye
gave up the ghost he would be drawing a gill of the hard stuff for
his honey.

Tobo poked his head back outside. "Hurry up!"

"Know who you're talking to, boy? The former
military dictator of all the Taglias."

The boy grinned, no more impressed than anyone else is these
days. "Used to be" is not worth the breeze on which it
is scribbled.

I tend to philosophize about that, probably a little too much.
Once upon a time I was nothing and had no ambition to be anything
more. Circumstance conspired to put immense power into my hands. I
could have ripped the guts out of half a world had that been my
inclination. But I let other obsessions drive me. So I am here on
the far side of the circle, where I started, scraping wounds,
setting bones and scribbling histories nobody is likely to read.
Only now I am a lot older and crankier. I have buried all the
friends of my youth except One-Eye . . .

I ducked into the old wizard's house.

The heat was ferocious. One-Eye and Gota had trouble keeping
warm even in summer. Though summers in southern Hsien seldom become
hot.

I stared. "You sure he's in trouble?"

Tobo said, "He tried to tell me something. I didn't
understand so I came for you. I was afraid." Him. Afraid.

One-Eye was seated in a rickety chair he had built for himself.
He was motionless but things stirred in the corners of the room,
usually only visible at the edge of my eye. Snail shells cluttered