"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Dus 4 - Book of Silence" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

"They stopped coming?" Garth said, encouraging him to continue.
"Yes, my lord. After all, there is no reward offered, no great prize to
be won."
"Nothing but a chance for fame and glory, and the risk of death, more
easily found elsewhere, to be sure." Garth nodded, then swung himself up into
the saddle.
"Forgive me, my lord," the man said, gathering his courage, "but
why...ah, why have you come here? Why do you bother with our accursed and
wretched valley?"
"Your valley does not seem wretched to me, man. I have come here out of
boredom, people of Orgul; I grew weary of a life of quiet and decided, on a
whim, to come here and aid those the dragon oppressed. I have lived for more
than a century and adventured in many lands, but never before have those I
came to aid tried so hard to turn me away."
"But, my lord," someone protested, "we seek only to prevent the loss of
another brave-"
"Enough, human," Garth interrupted. "Tell me, now, which road is most
likely to lead me to this vile monster?"
Reluctantly, the man pointed to the western road, and with a word in the
warbeast's triangular ear, Garth rode on.


CHAPTER THREE

The road he took from the plaza appeared to run through the village's
commercial area; the houses on either side held small shops, displaying fine
rugs and fabrics in their many-paned windows, or delicate carvings, or
gleaming pots and kettles, or other goods. A blacksmith's forge trailed smoke
into the blue of the sky, but the smith was not at work as the overman passed.
Even though the people he encountered shied away from him, averting
their eyes and hurrying out of sight, he enjoyed the ride. This village, it
seemed to him, was more the sort of place he might have liked to live in, if
he were to live among humans, than the wastelands of the north. Skelleth might
be flourishing, but it was stop cold and dirty and gray, huddled on a barren
plain against the long harsh winters; this village was bright and cheerful,
trailing off without a border into the surrounding green of field and forest,
rather than being chopped off short by a ruined city wall. The sunlight was
warm on his back, the breeze fresh with the smells of abundant greenery.
Garth found it quite impossible to believe that this was the home ground
of a dragon as terrible as the one he had heard described. He puzzled anew at
the Orgulians' insistence that he turn back.
Looking about, he wondered idly whether overmen had ever lived in this
delightful valley, back in those long-lost legendary days before the Racial
Wars, before his people were driven into the barren Northern Waste. For
centuries the overmen of the Waste had believed themselves to be the only ones
to have survived those bitter wars, but recently Garth himself had discovered
that others still lived on the Yprian Coast, a region nearly as desolate as
the Waste itself. Could there be more, scattered about the world? Might some
still linger in the hills around Orgul? Garth found that an appealing fancy;
this country was one he would have enjoyed calling his home, and it pleased