Читать книгу Daughters of Destiny - Baum Lyman Frank, Lyman Frank Baum, Edith Van Dyne - Страница 7

When Burah Khan picked Dirrag of the tribe of Ugg as his messenger to the monastery of Takkatu, he knew his man.

Dirrag was brother to the sirdar of his tribe, and the tribe of Ugg was Burah Khan’s tribe, prominent above all others for having furnished two great rulers to the nation: Keedar the Great and his warrior son the Lion of Mekran. Well might the tribe of Ugg be proud, and well might Dirrag be faithful to his own kin.

The messenger was thin and wiry; he was not a tall man, but neither was Burah Khan, for that matter. Dirrag wore a black, thick beard that covered nearly his entire face. His eyes, as they glinted through the thicket of whisker, were keen as a ferret’s. One of his ears had been sliced away by a cimeter; his left hand had but one finger and the thumb remaining; his body was seared with scars on almost every inch of its compact surface. Dirrag was no longer ornamental – if he had ever possessed that quality – but he was an exceedingly useful man in a skirmish and had fought for years beside Burah himself. They knew each other.