The Road of the Eagles

Начало книги

The loser of the sea fight wallowed in the crimson wash. Just out of bow-shot, the winner limped away toward the rugged hills that overhung the blue water. It was a scene common enough on the Sea of Vilayet in the reign of King Yildiz of Turan.

The ship heeling drunkenly in the blue waste was a high-beaked Turanian war galley, a sister to the other. On the loser, death had reaped a plentiful harvest. Dead men sprawled on the high poop; they hung loosely over the scarred rail; they slumped along the runway that bridged the waist, where the mangled oarsmen lay among their broken benches.

Clustered on the poop stood the survivors, thirty men, many dripping blood. They were men of many nations: Kothians, Zamorians, Brythunians, Corinthians, Shemites, Zaporoskans. Their features were those of wild men, and many bore the scars of lash or branding iron. Many were half naked, but the motley clothes they wore were often of good quality, though now stained with tar and blood. Some were bareheaded, while others wore steel caps, fur caps, or strips of cloth wound turbanwise about their heads. Some wore shirts of chain mail; others were naked to their sash-girt waists, their muscular arms and shoulders burnt almost black. Jewels glittered in earrings and the hilts of daggers. Naked swords were in their hands. Their dark eyes were restless.

Читать дальше →