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

wit than a lower animal had. Too many people were willing to suffer under
various forms of oppression, rather than make the effort necessary to improve
their lot.
No one among the overmen of the Northern Waste had attempted to come
south overland for any purpose during the three centuries of relative peace
that had followed the Racial Wars; they had been told that the border with
Eramma was guarded night and day by ferocious human warriors and they had
believed it until Garth made the journey to Skelleth himself, for reasons of
his own, and discovered the pitiful state of the human defenses.
No overman had troubled himself to explore other kingdoms until Garth,
on an errand for the Forgotten King, ventured into Nekutta and learned that
there were other overmen still in the world, living on the Yprian Coast. And
no attempt had been made to establish trade until Garth began it.
Among humans, the people of Skelleth had tolerated an insane baron
without serious complaint, ignoring his bizarre behavior and occasional
arbitrary executions, until Garth murdered him. In the Nekuttan city of
Dûsarra, the populace had made no protest against the domination of the cults
of the dark gods, nor had it tried to halt the kidnappings and human
sacrifices of the more vicious cults.
In Orgul, though, when heroes had failed to kill the dragon, ordinary
farmers had managed to poison it, and common village craftsmen had built and
maintained a replacement to ward off other predators, more human but no less
vicious.
That fact cheered Garth considerably.
His own behavior pleased him as well. For the first time, he had
ventured out into human lands beyond Skelleth, accomplished as much of his
purpose as he saw fit, and headed homeward without killing a single person.
He was, he had been told, the chosen avatar of Bheleu, doomed to
symbolize the Fourteenth Age, the Age of Destruction. Heretofore it had seemed
that he was destined to bring chaos and disaster wherever he went; he had led
the sacking of Skelleth, been responsible for bringing the White Death to
Dûsarra, been involved in the death of the wizard who had ruled Mormoreth and
killed its population, and, he suspected, somehow contributed to the collapse
of the Kingdom of Eramma.
On this particular journey, however, he had not destroyed anything, nor
killed anything more important than goats, and those only for food for his
mount.
This raised his spirits so much that even the battlefields and soldiers
he passed on his way north did not dissipate his good cheer. He moved on past
Sland and along the mountains until he came within sight of the towers of
Ur-Dormulk, where he turned east and circled around the city. He had traveled
this far by night, but from here on, the population was thin and the land
inhospitable; the war would therefore not be much in evidence. Furthermore,
beyond Ur-Dormulk, overmen were no longer totally unknown; the Yprian caravans
had been crossing these lands occasionally for most of the past three years,
and the people were accustomed to them. Householders would not attack Garth on
sight simply because of his species.
He could, if he chose, travel by day and use the highway to Skelleth
openly.
Switching his schedule all at once, however, was not particularly