"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earll" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

Most curious of all was the nonappearance of Aargh the English wolf, who
invariably knew everything that was happening in the land for miles around.

file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Gordon%20Dickson%20-...20Knight%2005%20-%20The%20Dragon,%20the%20Earl.html (6 of 649)16-2-2006 15:30:44
Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html


Aargh might have been expected to show up on his own initiative; certainly he
would have done so if he had known what was going on. He had come to join
them in their beleaguered castle, earlier this same year, running literally over the
backs of hundreds of closely packed sea serpents to do so, and needing to be
hauled up from the moat with his teeth clenched in a rope dropped from the
curtain wall to him.

For that matter, the failure of Carolinus to show up was also mysterious. True,
Jim had foolishly overspent his magic reserve— this time in what even Angie
would consider a good cause (but Carolinus would not)—helping to get the
harvest in, this fall, and the castle prepared for winter.

But none of them had appeared.

"Most likely, the messengers didn't get through," said Jim, avoiding the fact that
Angie would know as well as he that neither Aargh nor Carolinus should have
needed to be summoned. They should have known when Malencontri was under
attack; and then both would have come out of friendship—though neither of
them would admit to such a weakness; and Carolinus additionally would have
appeared out of a sense of responsibility to his apprentice in magic, which Jim
happened to be.

"It doesn't matter," murmured Angie into Jim's chest.

"GREETINGS!" boomed an enormous voice.

Jim and Angie looked up, startled, to see a giant—a real giant, thirty feet if he
was an inch—approaching the curtain wall from the woods with twenty-foot
strides.

file:///J|/sci-fi/Nieuwe%20map/Gordon%20Dickson%20-...20Knight%2005%20-%20The%20Dragon,%20the%20Earl.html (7 of 649)16-2-2006 15:30:44
Dickson, Gordon R - Dragon Knight 05 - The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll (v1.0) (html).html




CHAPTER 2
Rrrnlf!" said Angie. It was indeed the sea devil, whom they had met earlier in
the year when the sea serpents had attempted an invasion of England in
collaboration with the French. The most unlikely of rescuers—if he was indeed
that.

Jim's gaze flew to the smoke streams above the treetops. Rrrnlf was advancing