"Raymond E. Feist - Serpentwar 1 - Shadow of a Dark Queen2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

'This one's blood is cold,' whispered Jarwa.
Kaba made a sign. 'The cold-blooded are creatures of
legend.'
'And what of those?' asked Jarwa, motioning to the
distant fire engulfing his capital.
Kaba could only shrug. Saying nothing more, Jarwa
led his oldest friend into the Sha-shahan's tent.
The tent was larger than any other in camp, in reality a
pavilion of many tents sewn together. Glancing around
the interior, Jarwa felt cold grip his heart. So many of his
wisest advisers and his most powerful loremasters were
missing. Yet of those who remained, all looked to him
with hope. He was Sha-shahan, and it was his duty to
deliver the people.
Then his eyes fell upon the alien, and again he wondered
which choice was wiser. The creature looked much
like the Saaur, green scales covering arms and face, but
he wore a deep-hooded robe that concealed the body,
rather than the armor of a warrior or robes of a
loremaster. He was small by Saaur standards, being less
than two arms' span in height, and his snout was too
long by half, and his eyes were all black, rather than red
iris upon white as were the eyes of the Saaur. Where
thick white nails should have been, black talons
extended from his fingers. And his speech contained a
sibilance, from the tongue that forked. As he removed
his battered helm from his head and handed it to a


servant, Jarwa voiced aloud what every warrior and
loremaster in the tent thought: 'Snake.'
The creature bowed his head, as if this were a greeting
instead of a deadly insult. 'Yes, my lord,' it hissed in
return.
Several of Jarwa's warriors had hands upon weapons,
but the old Cupbearer, second only to Kaba in importance
to his lord, said, 'He is our guest.'
Long had the legends of the snake people been with
the Saaur, the lizard people of Shila. Like the hot-blooded
Saaur, yet not, they were creatures invoked
by mothers to frighten naughty children at night. Eaters
of their own kind, laying eggs in hot pools, the snake
people were feared and hated with racial passion though
none had been seen in the longest memory of the loremasters
of the Saaur. in the legend it was said that both
races were created by the Goddess, at the dawn of time,
when the first riders of the Heavenly Horde were
hatched. The servants of the Green Lady, Goddess of the
Night, the snakes had remained in her mansion, while
the Saaur had ridden forth with her and her godbrothers