"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 2 - With a Single Spell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

said that during the Great War dragons had been tamed and trained. A reward of
that magnitude was worth a little risk, with that much money he could, as his
advisor had suggested, come back and buy a few spells. Not that he'd need to;
he could live quite comfortably for the rest of his life on that much! And all
that without even considering the position or the princess.
The princess, he was not at all sure he wanted to marry anyone as yet,
princess or otherwise. If one of the prettier young women in Telven had shown
an interest, he might well have married, but they had never really taken him
seriously after he apprenticed himself to old Roggit, and he was not eager to
wed a stranger, someone from an entirely different background. Well, if by
some miracle he somehow did kill the dragon, surely he need not accept all the
reward; let some worthy prince marry her. Tobas would settle for the money.
Of course, he thought, he mustn't count the money before he had it; he
had no idea how to kill a dragon. He knew almost nothing about dragons. He had
never seen any, but they had figured in various stories he had heard as a
child; they reportedly came in various sizes and shapes and colors. Some were
said to breathe fire; some were said to speak in various languages and to be
as dangerous with their clever tongues as with their claws and teeth. During
the Great War, both sides had reportedly trained them to kill the enemy. A
dragon could be almost anything. He would need to look the situation over
carefully and see just what the story was, what sort of a dragon this Dwomor
had roaming the hills. If the odds looked too bad, and realism told him that
dragon slaying couldn't be easy, if these people had sent a recruiter all the
way to Ethshar to find volunteers, he would simply leave. At least he would be
somewhere new; Dwomor, whatever and wherever it might be, might well have more
opportunities available to him than Ethshar. He would not be an enemy there
simply by virtue of his homeland, either; he had never heard of anyone sinking
or capturing ships from any place called Dwomor.
He could not possibly be much worse off wandering in Dwomor than
wandering in Ethshar, he told himself, and at least, as a recruited dragon
slayer, he wouldn't have to worry about being sold into slavery as a vagrant.
"All right," he said. "You've got a recruit. When do we leave?"
The recruiter smiled. "Oh, not for some time yet; I'm hoping to bring
back a dozen young adventurers like yourself." He raised his voice and began
calling to the handful of Ethsharites entering the market square. "Here's your
chance for riches and glory! A chance to travel and see the world! Come over
here, folks, and let me tell you all about it!"
Tobas' stomach growled, and he sighed. He was committed now; he would
either have to face a dragon of unknown size and ferocity or break his signed
agreement and desert somewhere in the Small Kingdoms. He could not stay in
Ethshar.
At the very least, if the recruiter wanted Tobas to reach Dwomor well
enough to go dragon hunting, the blackmailing scoundrel would have to feed him
sometime soon.


CHAPTER 8

When they finally boarded the ship, there were nine of them in all; the
recruiter seemed well pleased with his catch.