"Fifth Millennium - 04 - Snowbrother" - читать интересную книгу автора (Meier Shirley)

Snowbrother
S.M. Stirling
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional,
and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 1992 by S. M. Stirling
A shorter and substantially different version of this novel was published in 1985.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any
form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, N.Y.
ISBN: 0-671-72119-4 Cover art by Larry Elmore
Map by Eleanor Kostyk First printing, May
Distributed by SIMON & SCHUSTER 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y.
Printed in the United States of America
to Jan
PROLOGUE:
Long ago, in the Before, we were as the gods are, riding thunderbirds of metal, wielding
Break-the-Sky medicine, smashing whole cities at a single blow. Then, all the lands were one
realm, from the bitterwater of the east to the sea beyond the Westwall mountains. In
fortresses beneath the earth, or aloft beyond the world of air our Ancestors ruled, the chosen
warriors of the gods. Weak and sinful, many turned from the honorable path of war, all but
the faithful few, and the ahKomman were angered. So the Godwar came, and the year
Without Sun; the Ztrateke ahkomman walked no more with humans, and the world was
broken and changed. But we are warriors still.

Kommanz folktale
quoted in the Book of Journeys
of Anyamarah the Far-Traveled
preserved in the libraries of the Rose Temple, Senlaw
775 th Year of the Maleficence
(4720 A.D.)
STONEFORT KEEP
KOMMANZ OF GRANFOR
AUTUMN, 4962 A.D.
"It is good," one of the councilors said, hawking and spitting in the dirt. The gobbet of
phlegm landed near the outland merchant's boot, but his diplomatic smile never
wavered.
Zhy'da Mek Kermak grunted and looked down at the plow below the low earth dais
where the ruling kin and their wisefolk waited. The Senior of Stonefort Keep was a tall
rawboned woman in her early fifties, still ropily muscular; except for those knocked out
in fights, she still had all her teeth, strong and yellow as she grinned.
"Maybe too good," she rasped, taking another pull at the leather cup of beer. The plow
had a wooden frame, but the share and moldboard were of dark-shining durcret; that
was a southron thing, almost as strong as metal but far cheaper. In the demonstration
two horses had drawn it easily through tough prairie sod, while six oxen struggled and
heaved at the clumsy Kommanz breaking-plow.
It was a hot day, even though the first night frosts had come; no sign of a thunderstorm
in the cloudless sky, which was a good omen. Mustering Fair, bright noon sun through a
harvest-haze of dust, air heavy with the smells of sweat and dung and smoke. The
angular stone ramparts and towers of the Keep bulked at their backs, and the