Книга только для ознакомления
.
Scattered about the dusty crossroads were several queer,
twisted objects. A raven dived down and pecked at one of
the objects before flapping again into the air, and only then
did Matya realize what the strange things were: corpses,
lying still in the dirt of the road.
She counted five of them as Rabbit - eyeing the dead
nervously - pulled the wagon to the crossroads. Matya
climbed down and knelt to examine one of the bodies, an
older man's, dressed in neat but threadbare attire. A crudely
made arrow with black fletching protruded from its throat.
"Goblins," Matya said in disgust. She had heard rumors
that the verminous creatures were creeping down from the
high places of the mountains of late to waylay travelers. By
her guess, these had been pilgrims, making for Caergoth, to
the south, to visit the temples of the new gods there.
"They found their gods sooner than they thought," Matya
muttered. She spoke a brief prayer to speed the dead on
their journey, then began rummaging about the bodies,
seeing if any of them carried something that might be worth
trading. After all, the dead had no use for objects of value.
Matya, on the other hand, did.
After several minutes, however, she gave up in disgust.
Like most pilgrims, these owned little more than the clothes
on their backs. She would not have scorned even these, but
they were threadbare and stained with blood. All she had
got for her trouble was a single copper coin, and a bent one
at that.
"There's nothing for us here," Matya told Rabbit as she
climbed back into the wagon
|
