"Mitchell Smith - Kingdom River" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Mitchell)

The ravens had come to This'll Do.
Sam Monroe, Captain-General of North Map-Mexico — and commander of the army that,
before this, had been called Never-Defeated — frightened birds here and there as he walked among
the dead.
A messenger-pigeon had reached Better-Weather, and he'd come, down with headquarters' Heavy
Cavalry, come quickly, but still arriving two days too late. Troopers of the Second Regiment of Light
Cavalry lay scattered through high grass for almost a Warm-time mile down the valley from Please Pass.
Sam Monroe walked through tall brown stems still brittle from last night's frost. Death had come in
Patchy-fool Autumn, the eight-week summer ended two weeks before. Dead troopers lay here and
there, almost hidden in the grass except where low mounds of the slain showed — Light Cavalry's
hide-and-chainmail hauberks hacked by the imperial cataphracts' battle axes.
More than three hundred dead within sight of his encampment on the near hill, and dozens more
lying out of sight to the east, where the village stood, ridden down as they'd spurred away. It seemed to
Sam Monroe there would certainly be at least four hundred dead, when totaled.
Though the villagers had been spared the empire's usual rapes and murders, valuable squash and
pumpkin fields had been trampled, their last harvest destroyed. Farms had been burned or battered —
pine-plank buildings feathered with the cataphracts' arrows, doors smashed in, the furnishings axed for
campfires.
The valley fields were quiet now, excepting only a raven's occasional croaking, only the dawn wind's
murmuring through the grass. A cold wind, almost freezing, with Daughter Summer dead. Sam's soldiers
believed Lady Weather would be weeping sleety tears for her, as Lord Winter came walking south from
the Wall.
The imperials' commander had already recovered his killed and wounded, taken them back south
through the pass, heading farther south of the Sierra Oriental to what would certainly be a triumph in
Mexico City for the Empire's first victory against the North.
Not a great battle — only a clash of cavalry along a mountain border. But Sam Monroe's army
had lost it. The charm of always winning was broken.
The Heavy Cavalrymen not digging john-trench, tending horses, or guying tents, were watching from
the hill as he walked through the grass from corpse to corpse; Sam could feel them watching.... He knew
so many of the dead. A small army was full of familiar faces — even though the chill afternoons had still
been warm enough to spoil these, begin to swell them with rot in the army's brown wool and leather.
He knew a number of these troopers — and all the officers, of course. He'd saluted them in battle
many times as they'd poured past him to trumpet calls in a flood of fast horses, shining steel, and banners.
Sam walked through the grass, visiting this one… then another. The women were the worst. If it
hadn't been for the women, he would not be weeping. They lay, slender bones broken, soft skin sliced,
faces — some still beautiful — astonished at their deaths. Where bright helmets had been beaten away,
gleaming drifts of long hair, black, red, and golden, lay in broken grass.
He visited the dead for a Warm-time hour, then went back up the hill as the picks and shovels were
brought down to bury them.
Two Heavy Cavalry corporals were posted as guards just beyond ear-shot of his tent (wonderful
Warm-time phrase, 'ear-shot'). They saluted as he passed. Sam saw Margaret had brought his breakfast
to a camp table by the tent's entrance.
"Sir, please eat." She stood watching him. "Done is done." A favorite saying of hers.
"The wounded?"
"Mercies found the last of them, eleven WT miles east. They've started bringing them in." She saw
the question in his face. "Fifty-three, sir. And Ned Flores. He lost a hand… left hand."
 Sam sat at the table. The breakfast was scrambled chicken eggs, goat sausage, and tortillas —
almost a Warm-time breakfast out of the old copybooks, except the sausage would have been pig, the
tortillas toasted bread with spotted-cow butter.