The Goblin Mirror

Начало книги

A WITCH WIND, COUNTRY FOLK CALLED THE SUDDEN STORM that plunged Maggiar from autumn into winter, that stripped the colored leaves from forest and orchard all in a night. Behind it came an ice wind, edged with sleet and bitter cold— but that same winter brought a wealth of game the like of which the old folk had never seen. Hunters trekked home over the drifts with their pack ponies laden with meat and furs to keep old and young well-fed and warm; and with ample stock besides for trade to the west: deer and badger skins, marten and fox and ermine, from a plenitude of game that never seemed diminished. By midwinter deer had stripped the forest branches low enough to reach, foxes raided middens and storehouses, and the hunters could not shoot or trap them fast enough. Deer took to farmers' fruit trees. Boar rooted after winter stores, and marten and ermine hunted right up under the porches of Maggiar's isolated steadings. The old folk said: It was never like this before.

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