Downfall

Начало книги

“A dragon chew on you for a while and spit you out?” Rig Mer-Krel asked as he leaned against the doorframe, eyeing a patient who was almost completely sheathed in bandages.

The mariner scowled—not from the lack of an answer or at the patient’s sorry appearance, though the latter was more than a little disconcerting—but from the smell that permeated the small room and clung to his nostrils. Rig swallowed and nearly gagged, a nasty taste settling in his mouth that he attributed to the odd odor.

The heat made things worse, he decided. He was certainly miserable from it, his clothes drenched with sweat. This was the middle of an exceptionally hot summer, a month called the Dry-Heat by the area’s residents, and the air in this place felt brutally heavy and close. The narrow gap beneath the drawn shutters allowed only the suggestion of a breeze. Rig considered opening the shutters wide to get the air circulating. But he didn’t intend to stay long, and he had no desire to make the patient more comfortable.

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