Читать книгу Warhost of Vastmark - Janny Wurts, Janny Wurts - Страница 13

In striking unconcern for the Koriani plot to break the wards over Althain Tower, Sethvir sits dreamy-eyed over an emptied mug of tea, while his misty regard quarters sights far removed from the winter sky outside his casement: on Avenor’s brick battlements, a desolate royal wife sheds lonely tears; two exuberant, blond-haired children laugh on a brigantine’s decks in Southshire harbour; in Vastmark, wyverns ride the winds like blown rags, their reptilian eyes alert for strayed sheep, while below them, a laggard band of shepherds herd their flocks through the defiles to lowland pastures …

In the steppelands of Shand, a motley assortment of raided livestock stampedes through the wilds of Alland, herd after herd of mixed horses and cattle hazed westward by Erlien’s clansmen …

In Merior by the Sea, patient as he waits out a widow’s tortured silence, Lysaer s’Ilessid pens a letter to his wife tender in assurance that war is not yet in the offing, until his watch officer interrupts with the bad news that Jinesse and the man Tharrick have evaded the guard on the cottage, and a search of the village has failed to find them …