"Julian May - Trillium 1 - Black Trillium" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

submissive at last, and golden-haired Anigel who could not leave off from
sobbing.

After bidding goodbye to his friends, he once again most solemnly charged the
venerable Lord Manoparo and the four knights with him, who smote their armored
bosoms in a gesture of fealty and drew their swords. Then the King turned away.
With his highborn squire Barnipo bearing the royal shield ahead of him, he strode
through the solar door with most of the Oathed Companions following after. It
was time for him to fulfill his own destiny, and not a one of those left in the room
doubted what it would be.

As night fell on that day of conquest, the fires of the Citadel dwindled and merged
their smoke with the miasma rising from the Mire. The knoll on which the
Ruwendian capital stood seemed to be an island in a sea of turbulent cloud.
Labornoki knights under General Hamil, who had emerged victorious from the
last stand of the Oathed Companions, brought the vanquished King Krain and his
squire Barnipo before King Voltrik, Crown Prince Antar, and the sorcerer
Orogastus. A few score other noble Ruwendian captives were there in the throne
room, heavily fettered and well guarded, in order to witness the capitulation of
their nation. The banner of Labornok, scarlet with three golden crossed swords,
hung on the wall behind the throne, where Voltrik now sat.

Krain was now near death, bleeding heavily from deep wounds in the right arm
and groin, and had to be supported by two of Hamil's knights as he was led
forward and forced to his knees at the feet of King Voltrik. One of his captors
flung down Krain's battered azure shield with its Black Trillium device all but
obliterated, and the other knight cast atop it the King's broken sword. Hamil
himself tore off Krain's helmet, removed the platinum royal coronet set with
sapphires and amber, and held it high for all to see. The squire Barnipo, unhurt
and unbound, trembled behind his liege in the grip of Lord Osorkon, Hamil's
second-in-command, a gigantic knight wearing gory black armor.

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Trillum 01 - Black Trillium by Bradley, May and Norton (v1.0) (html).html




"Well met, Royal Brother," Voltrik said to Krain. His fang-edged helmet visor
was open and he seemed to smile at the defeated Ruwendian monarch from within
the open jaws of some fantastic, bejeweled saurian. Voltrik's chased and
ornamented armor of gold-plated steel shone brilliantly in the torchlight, and he
lounged akimbo on the throne of Ruwenda with one leg crossed jauntily over the
other. "And do you now submit to me?"

"It seems I have little choice." Krain's voice was a husky whisper.

"Do you submit without condition," Voltrik demanded, thrusting the Ruwendian
coronet beneath the stricken ruler's nose, "knowing that only by swearing thus will
the noble and common inhabitants of your vanquished Citadel be spared death?"