"John Dalmas - The Three-Cornered War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dalmas John)

saving grace was appreciation of his wife's goodness, an awareness that kept him from
abusing her physically, and for the most part verbally.
Now Artus's calm, self-assured presence awed them. Years earlier they'd seen action
videos of the guerrilla war he'd led on Terfreya. Now news television was showing
cubeage of the defense of Smolen, in the forests of distant Maragor. They'd viewed a
column of crude sleighs, loaded with munitions and supplies. The gaunt horses pulling
them were coated with rime from their own breath. They'd watched other people's sons
die in battle. Watched their own son, a large and imposing total stranger, leading a file
of deadly White T'swa on skis.
To those who'd known him only as a kid, it was unreal. And more unreal to have him
there live, a smiling man who seemed even larger than he was. At the terminal, he'd
hugged first his mother, then his father. The hug had startled Darlek Romlar, and
triggered guilt. There were no cameras standing by—only his parents had known he
was coming—and Artus wore casual civilian clothes. To better ensure privacy, he'd
arrived on a routine government courier flight.
He'd had few friends in school, but on the second day he'd visited two of them, and two
of his old teachers who had treated him with sensitivity. The visits blew his privacy, of
course, and that evening he was respectfully contacted by local television, which was,

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John Dalmas - The Three-Cornered War


of course, government controlled. He put them off, scheduling them for his last day
there. On the third day he'd taken his parents for a two-day trip to Cobalt Lake, and the
Great Cascade of the Alvslekk. There they'd seen the sights from a horse-drawn
carriage, and eaten in fine restaurants. His mother adored him, while silently worrying
about the cost. His father began to feel more comfortable with him.
Lotta had stayed at Landfall. The Iryalan culture did not require that fianc6s and
fiancees be approved by, or even meet their prospective in-laws. And on the job there
was always more needing her personal attention than she had time for.
They were married the day after Artus returned. On Iryala, weddings were personal and
intimate. Thus the reception was small but elegant; Lord Kristal had paid for it. The
regiment was widely scattered on leave, and few even knew of it. A dozen attended.
Colonel Voker had flown in from the Blue Forest Military Reservation, along with his
T'swa counterpart, Dak-So. The T'swa colonel was larger than Artus, his scarred black
face set off strikingly by his white dress scarf.
Sir Varlik Lormagen was also there, with his wife and their son Kusu. Kusu was OSP's
Director of Research and Development, while Varlik had been the original "White
T'swi." He'd served as correspondent with the T'swa Red Scorpion Regiment, in the
Technite War on Kettle, more than thirty years earlier. The concept of T'swa-trained
Iryalan regiments had originated with him.
After the reception, the newlyweds left on the tradi-tional "love trip," five days on the
coast, alone at a guest cottage on Lormagen beach property.
That evening, after a swim in a backwater pool, they sat on a split-log bench beneath a
darkening sky, holding hands, and watching the surf crash on massive basalt. The first
stars were appearing in the east. Artus chuckled.
"A beautiful day," he said, and grinned down at the woman beside him. "Who'd have
imagined? It's quite a world, at least for its luckiest man."
"Artus," she answered, "luck is made, more often than not. Remind me to give you my