"David Weber & Linda Evans - Hells Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

hundred miles of one another? Gods! They could have five entirely new transit chains radiating from this
single spot! It took him several seconds to wrap his mind around the implications, and then he smiled
crookedly.
"So that's why Magister Halathyn's like a gryphon in a henhouse!"
"Oh, that's exactly what he's like," she agreed with a grin. "And it'd take a special act of God to get
him out of here before every one of these portals is nailed down. Assuming, of course, that they're really
there. Don't forget that this is our first field trial. It's going to be mighty embarrassing if it has us out here
chasing some sort of wild goose!"
"Not very likely with both of you involved in chasing the goose in question, Magister Kelbryan," he
told her with a grin. She waved one hand in an almost uncomfortable gesture, and he gave a tiny nod of
acknowledgment and shifted conversational gears.
"Well, I guess we'll know one way or the other pretty soon," he said. "How far away from the
nearest are we now?"
"Assuming Magister Halathyn and I got it right when we built this thing, it's about thirty miles that
way," she replied, pointing almost due north, directly away from White Mist Lake.
"About fifteen hours hard hike, in this terrain," Jasak said thoughtfully. "Twice that with rest breaks, a
bivouac, and the need to find the best trails. And that assumes basically decent going the entire way."
He glanced at the local time display, then craned his neck, looking up through a break in the autumnal
canopy at the sun, and grimaced. The local days were getting short at this time of year, and there was
absolutely no way they were going to make it before dusk, he decided, and raised his voice.
"Fifty Garlath!"
"Sir?" Shevan Garlath was a lean, lanky, dark-haired man, almost ten years older than Jasak, despite
his junior rank. Although he'd been born in Yanko, his family had migrated from one of the smaller
Hilmaran kingdoms barely fifty years earlier, and it showed in his strong nose and very dark eyes as he
turned towards the hundred.
"We need to swing a little further east," Jasak said, chopping one hand in the direction indicated by
Kelbryan's illuminated needle. "About another thirty miles. We'll move on for another three or four hours,
then bivouac. Keep an eye out for a good site. "
"Yes, Sir," Garlath responded crisply enough to fool a casual bystander into thinking he was actually
a competent officer. Then he nodded to his platoon sword.
"You heard the Hundred, Sword Hernak," he said.
"Yes, Sir," the stocky, neatly bearded noncom acknowledged, and went trotting briskly ahead to
overtake the platoon's point and redirect its course. Jasak watched him go and reflected on how
fortunate Garlath was to have inherited a platoon sword good enough to make even him look almost
capable.
Platoon-Captain Janaki chan Calirath jerked upright in his sleeping bag so suddenly the nearest
sentry jumped in surprise. Under-Armsman chan Yaran whipped around at his platoon commander's
abrupt movement, then flinched as a huge, dark-barred peregrine falcon launched itself from the perch
beside the's sleeping bag. The bird screamed in hard, angry challenge, hurling itself into the clear, cold
night to circle overhead furiously . . . protectively.
Yaran stood for a moment, waiting for the platoon-captain to say something—anything. But the
platoon-captain only sat there. He didn't even move.
"Sir?" chan Yaran said tentatively. There was no response, and the under-armsman stepped a little
closer. "Platoon-Captain?"
Still no response, and chan Yaran began to sweat, despite the chill breeze blowing across the
encampment. There was something . . . ominous about the officer's total immobility. That would have
been true under any circumstances, but Janaki chan Calirath wasn't any old Imperial Marine officer. No
one was supposed to take any official notice of that, but every member of the platoon-captain's
command was a Ternathian (which, chan Yaran knew, wasn't exactly an accident), and that made this
officer's petrified lack of response downright frightening.