"Kate Novak - Lost Gods Series 1 - Finder's Bane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Novak Kate)

Lost Gods Series
Book 1
Finder's Bane
Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb
One
The Rescue

Joel turned his horse from the paved Northride Road onto the muddy Tethyamar Trail. The bard
halted and watched with some reluctance as the caravan moved past him up the road toward
Shadowdale. A shrine built by the fol-lowers of the god Torm stood at the juncture of the road and the
trail. With its walls of stone and thatched roof the shrine doubled as a way station for travelers who
couldn't reach Shadowdale by nightfall. It was too early in the day and the weather far too fair for any of
the merchants of the caravan to halt here. They were intent on pushing on to their markets in the north.
One of the caravan guards guided his horse forward until it stood beside the bard's. The guard, a
Dalesman named Branson, was a grizzled twenty-year veteran of the road. He was always
uncomfortable watching someone ride away from the safety of his caravan, especially someone as alone
and young as Joel was.
Branson had to admit the bard wasn't exactly a boy. Joel had the muscular physique of a man
and the sober demeanor of an adult, but the caravan guard could detect the signs of youth in him. The
bard's long red hair had the sheen of a child's, and after ten days without a shave, his beard was still
sparse, though his mustache stood out well enough. More telling was the way the young man's blue eyes
widened with every new vista. He wasn't, Branson judged, a seasoned traveler.
"Change o' heart, lad?" the guard asked hopefully.
The younger man shook his head. "No. The trail through Daggerdale is the only way to the Lost
Vale, and that's where I'm determined to go."
"I didn't exaggerate the dangers, lad. The trail's rid-den with giant spiders and wolves and orcs
and bandits and Zhentish scum, and the Daggerdale folk are none too friendly neither," Branson warned.
"I'm ready for some adventure," the bard declared.
The caravan guard snorted derisively and replied, "You're young yet. You'll grow out of it."
The young bard grinned but was wise enough not to argue. He stared after the tail end of the
caravan with which he'd traveled all the way from Cormyr. "I'm going to miss your singing," he said.
Branson roared with laughter. "You're going to miss your audience, you mean," he teased.
The bard lowered his eyes self-consciously.
"Aye, bard. Nothing to be ashamed of. You're a man who likes people. That's a good thing. And
a man who likes entertaining them. That's an even better thing."
"I don't think I've ever been so entertained as I was by the verses you made up to that campfire
song—espe-cially the one about the drunken mind flayer," Joel said. "You have a gift for verse."
Branson chuckled. "No wonder the church o' Milil don't like you bards becoming Finder priests.
Encouraging an old fool like me to write songs—com-peting with the likes o' you."
"Music doesn't belong only to bards," Joel insisted. "Nor any art just to the learned. Art belongs
to every-one. People can create it or change it any way they want. . . . Promise me you'll keep making
new songs," the bard said sincerely.
"Aye. I'll do that, if you promise to come back to hear 'em, so's I know you made it through."
"Deal," Joel agreed with a nod.
"But now you've got to be moving on, haven't you?" Branson asked. "Once knew a halfling bard
who had a saying—always leave 'em wantin' more." He stuck out his hand.
Joel grasped the old man's meaty wrist with his own slender hand and smiled as the guard
reached out with his other hand and squeezed his forearm reassuringly.
"Thanks for the good company. Safe journey," Joel said.
"Safe journey yourself," Branson retorted. "You'll be needing it more than I. Be off with you,