"Dennis L. McKiernan - Iron Tower1 - The Dark Tide" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKiernan Dennis L)

JOURNAL NOTES
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Note 1:
The source of this tale is a tattered copy of The Raven Book, an incredibly
fortunate find dating from the time before The Separation.
Note 2:
The Great War of the Ban ended the Second Era (2E) of Mithgar. The Third Era
(3E) began on the following Year's Start Day. The Third Era, too, eventually came to
an end, and so started the Fourth Era (4E). The tale recorded here began in
November of 4E2018. Although this adventure occurs four millennia after the Ban
War, the roots of the quest lie directly in the events of that earlier time.
Note 3:
There are many instances in this tale where, in the press of the moment, the
Dwarves, Elves, Men, and Warrows spoke in their own native tongues; yet, to avoid
the awkwardness of burdensome translations, where necessary I have rendered their
words in Pellarion, the Common Tongue of Mithgar. However, some words do not
lend themselves to translation, and these I've left unchanged; yet other words may
look to be in error, but are indeed correct. (For example, DelfLord is but a single
word, though a capital L nestles among its letters. Also note that waggon, traveller,
and several other similar words are written in the Pendwyrian form of Pellarion and
are not misspelled.)
Note 4:
 The "formal" speech spoken at the High King's court is similar in many respects
to Old High German. In those cases where court speech appeared in The Raven
Book, first I translated the words into Pellarion, and then, in the objective and
nominative cases of the pronoun "you," I respectively substituted "thee" and "thou"
to indicate that the formal court speech is being used. Again, to avoid overburdening
the reader, I have resisted inserting into the court speech additional archaic terms
such as hast, wilt, durst, prithee, and the like.


"And that is what Evil does: forces us all down dark pathways we otherwise
would not have trod."
Rael of Arden
January 10, 4E2019


CHAPTER 1
THE WELL-ATTENDED PARTING
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With a final burst of speed, the young buccan Warrow raced through ankle-deep
snow, his black hair flying out behind. In one hand he carried a bow already nocked
with an arrow, and he sprinted toward a fallen log, clots of snow flinging out behind
his flying boots; yet little or no sound did he make, for he was one of the Wee Folk.
Swiftly he reached the log and silently dropped to one knee, quickly drawing the
bow to the full and loosing the arrow with a humming twang of bowstring. Even
before the deadly missile had sped to the target, another arrow was released, and
another, another, and another—in all, five arrows were shot in rapid succession,