Читать книгу The King is dead, long live the King! - Eugene Wish - Страница 5

A month after the battle Glorian and his colleagues appeared to be about a gund (approximately 10 kilometers) from Felaya, the capital of Ikkelia. Here prevailed peace and order, the knights were walking leisurely with the ladies, they were being baptized and building greenhouses, the shepherds were tending cattle, the mills were spinning, to put it all together – everything was in place.

Earlier the picture outside the window was much gloomier. While passing through the royal domain and Rovelia, Glorian saw crowds of agitated soldiers and peasants. Some in a hurry were gathering their last belongings, slaughtering their cattle and loading it into their buckboards, others galloped in every possible direction, someone was injured and even killed. Sequators with the people of faith were making the sacred procession from one church of the Holy Trinity to another, praying for peace. Also was gathering Home Guard, men from 16 to 50 years old. All of them were scared and their faces looked darker than the thunderclouds above them. Soon, a line of carriages began to climb uphill to the gates of Felaya.

The Grand Master’s carriage rode up to the patterned steel gates of the beige city. The majestic fortress was located on a green hill framed on three sides by the river Enro. Six towers of various heights guarded the pristine citadel. Above each of them was a magnificent statue of one of the birds. In the highest tower of the Eagle was an alarm bell, in the tower of the Hawk were trumpeters, the Vulture hit intruders with tubs of combustible oil, the Kite and the Falcon were shooting with crossbows, and the Raven threw stones.

Furthermore, vigilant archers, who were always ready for battle, peeked out of loopholes in thick granite walls. Felaya was one of the most glorious cities in Ikkelia and throughout the whole Kannassis; in its lifetime, it has seen many sieges and battles, brilliant victories and bitter defeats.

This city was a commercial and cultural center as well. Here flourished various crafts and arts such as theater and opera, philosophy and arithmetic, alchemy and astrology, sculpture and architecture, jewelry and shipbuilding. In summer a traveling circus visited the city. There, as usual, performed clowns, magicians, midgets, fakirs, a bearded woman, a one-eyed goblin, a werewolf and even a vampire!

Also in summertime the city was flooded by the merchants from every corner of the world who came for the fair. The fair was in the city till autumn, the middle of October to be precise. Then the raining season came till December. This were exactly the troubled times when Glorian arrived to the city. Fear nested in the hearts of the warriors, who guarded the fortress, when they saw Glorian. But the mage himself had absolutely no idea what was happening.

«Hey, gatekeepers, open up the gates! Glorian the Lightbearer came to Felaya with support and advice!» – screeched the mage his anger.

The skies above Felaya were plaguing by lightnings. Tense sultry air was sliced with a sharp cold shower from a heavy iron sky. At last after almost a quarter of an hour one of the warriors, apparently of officer rank, found a nerve to approach the Glorian’s carriage.

«I cannot let you in, that is an order from the Prince Orond’ – the officer said. The Great Mage frowned, his eyes were bloodshot. Without a single word the leader of the light-bearers got out of the carriage and knocked over the guards of the fortress with the wave of a magical wrath.

«Your prince is just a despicable snotnose! I will show him what happens if you send away the mage who came to support you in these awe-inspiring times!» The bolted gates burst like ripe melons, and they swung open before the magician. The other light-bearers followed him.