Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress: 2-Book Collection. David Eddings

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘I don’t think they’ll be too happy about this.’

      ‘They aren’t down in the stream-bed, Riva. That’s where they’ve been dumping the excess dirt and rock they’re scraping off those terraces.’

      ‘I hope you’re right. Otherwise, they’ll probably get washed out to sea, and they’ll probably swear at me for a week after they swim back.’

      As it turned out, our newly released river saved those Alorns months of work. There were natural terraces under all the accumulated debris they’d been moving, and that first rush of water washed those terraces clean. The Alorns who were washed out to sea were so pleased with that turn of events that they didn’t even swear at Riva – at least not very much.

      Now that Riva had his sword, I was finished with the things I was supposed to do on the Isle of the Winds. I could finally go home. I spent a day or so giving Riva and his cousin Anrak their instructions. Anrak was a little too fond of good brown ale, but he was a good-natured fellow of whom the other Alorns were all very fond. He was the perfect second-in-command. Some of the orders Riva was going to have to give his people wouldn’t go down very well. Anrak, with his boisterous, good-humored laughter, was the perfect one to make them palatable. I sketched in Riva’s throne room for him and told him how to fasten his sword to the wall behind the throne. It was a little difficult to keep his attention, since he wanted to talk about the girl in his dream. Then I wished them good luck and went off down the beach until I was out of sight. There was no real point to upsetting Riva’s people any more than they already were.

      I chose the form of an albatross for my return to the mainland. A seven-foot wingspan is very useful when you fly as badly as I do. After I was a few miles out to sea and had picked up some altitude, I learned the trick of simply locking those great wings out and coasting along on the air. What a joy that was! No flapping. No floundering. No panic. I even got to the point where I liked it. I think I could have soared like that for a solid month. I even took a few short naps on my way.

      It was almost with regret that I saw the coast of what’s now Sendaria on the horizon.

      You wouldn’t believe how different Sendaria was in those days. What’s now farmland was an untamed forest of huge trees, and just about the only part of it that was inhabited was a stretch along the north bank of the Camaar River that was occupied by the Wacite Arends. Because I was really in a hurry to get back to the Vale, I took the familiar form of the wolf and loped off through the forest.

      This time I didn’t have to periodically wait for any Alorns to catch up with me, so I made very good time. It was summer by now, so I had good weather. I angled down across Sendaria in a southeasterly direction and soon reached the mountains.

      After a bit of consideration, I decided not to waste time with a tiresome detour, but to cut straight across the northern end of Ulgoland. I didn’t really think that the monsters would be a problem. They were interested in men, not wolves; even Algroths and Hrulgin avoided wolves.

      I gave some thought to swinging by Prolgu to advise the current Gorim of what had happened in Mallorea, but I decided against it. My Master knew about it, and he’d have certainly advised UL before he and his brothers had departed.

      That was something I didn’t really want to think about. My Master had been the central fact of my life for four thousand years, and his departure left a very large hole in my concept of the world. I couldn’t imagine the Vale without him.

      Anyway, I bypassed Prolgu and continued southeasterly toward the Vale. I saw a few Algroths lurking near the edge of the trees, and once a herd of Hrulgin, but they wisely chose not to interfere with me. I was in a hurry, and I wasn’t in any mood for interruptions.

      I loped across a ridge-line and descended into a river gorge. Since all the rivers on this side of the mountains of Ulgo flowed eastward to empty into the Aldur River, the quickest way to reach the Vale would be simply to follow the river until it reached the plains of Algaria.

      Notice that I was already thinking of that vast grassland in those terms.

      I can’t exactly remember why I chose to resume my own form when I reached the river. Maybe I thought I needed a bath. I’d been on the go for six months now, and I certainly didn’t want to offend Poledra by showing up in our tower smelling like a goat. Perhaps it was because I wanted a hot meal. As a wolf, I was quite satisfied with a diet of raw rabbit or uncooked deer or even an occasional field-mouse, but I was not entirely a wolf, and I periodically grew hungry for cooked food. I pulled down a deer, anyway, resumed my own form and set to work building a fire. I spitted a haunch, set it to roasting over the fire, and bathed in the river while it cooked.

      I probably ate too much. A wolf on the move doesn’t really spend too much time eating – usually no more than a few bites before he’s off again – so I’d definitely managed to build up quite an appetite.

      Anyway, after I’d eaten, I dozed by my fire. I really don’t know how long I slept, but I was awakened quite suddenly by a kind of mindless hooting that sounded almost like laughter. I cursed my inattentiveness. Somehow a pack of rock-wolves had managed to creep up on me.

      The term ‘rock-wolf’ is really a misnomer. They aren’t really wolves, but are more closely related to hyenas. They’re scavengers, and they’d probably caught scent of my deer. It would have been a simple thing to change back into a wolf and outrun them. I was comfortable, though, and I certainly didn’t feel like running on a full stomach. I was also feeling just a little pugnacious. I’d been sleeping very well and being awakened that way irritated me. I built up my fire and settled my back against a tree to wait for them. If they pushed me too far, there’d be one less pack of rock-wolves in the morning.

      I saw a few of the ugly brutes slinking along at the edge of the trees, but they were afraid of my fire, so they didn’t come any closer. That went on for the rest of the night. The fact that they neither attacked nor went off to find food somewhere else was a bit puzzling. This was not the way rock-wolves normally behaved

      Dawn was just touching the eastern sky when I found out why.

      I’d just piled more wood on my fire when I caught a movement at the edge of the trees out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was another rock-wolf, so I took hold of a stick that was burning quite well, turned, and drew back my arm to throw the burning brand at the beast.

      It wasn’t a rock-wolf, however. It was an Eldrak.

      I’d seen Eldrakyn before, of course, but always from a distance, so I hadn’t realized just how big they are. I silently berated myself for not going wolf while I had the chance. Changing form takes a little while, and the huge creature wasn’t very far away from me. If he was totally mad, as the Hrulgin and Algroths had been, he wouldn’t give me nearly enough time.

      He was shaggy and about eight feet tall. He didn’t have what you’d really call a nose, and his lower jaw stuck out. He had long yellow tusks like a wild boar, and they jutted upward out of that protruding lower jaw. He had little, piglike eyes sunk deep under a heavy brow-ridge, and those eyes burned red. ‘Why man-thing come to Grul’s range?’ he growled at me.

      That was a surprise. I knew that the Eldrakyn were more intelligent than Algroths or Trolls, but I didn’t know that they could talk.

      I recovered quickly. The fact that he could talk raised the possibility of a peaceful solution here. ‘Just passing through, old boy,’ I replied urbanely. ‘I didn’t mean to trespass, but I didn’t realize that this range belongs to you.’

      ‘All СКАЧАТЬ