"Shirley Meier & S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millenium 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.