(eng) Michael Scott Rohan - Winter of the World 03 by The Hammer of the Sun

Author:The Hammer of the Sun [Sun, The Hammer of the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"He might; aye, he might, at that. But whatever he got it from, it's gone now."

"Is it? Come inside - come!" He hobbled towards the bench laden with his present studies, bent beneath the weight of books and notes. "So many forms of heat I've studied!" He picked up sheaves of parchment scraps, tablets, wooden slips, tossing them aside one after another. "The sun! Crystals! Stonesblood! Strange metals! All this time and I forgot what was most obvious to me!" He seized a map from among the clutter, brushed a table clear of tools with a single sweep of a crutch and in a crackle of crisp linen unrolled the map across it.

"Roc, you've travelled widely enough in the land by now, you can tell me - those loskveneth, those fire-mountains like the ones we saw, whereabouts exactly do they lie? No, don't show me - mark them in with the charcoal here…"

"Well…" began Roc slowly, and then with growing irritation, "Does it have to be now? I need my bed, I'm too sleep-ridden to remember! I don't know where every single one is - there's too many, large and small, it seems they've been spreading lately, and in some places there's a whole lot close together -"

"Just the major ones - and mark regions where they're grouped - yes, so…"

Yawning, Roc cudgelled his weary brain, and made his charcoal circles, here and there as they came to mind, in no particular order. But after a moment he stopped, blinked down at the map a moment and swore.

"Yes?" demanded Elof keenly.

"This… did you foresee this? You did, didn't you? I can see it in those cat's eyes of yours. Or… has somebody whispered something in your ear?"

"Foresee what?" grinned Elof.

Roc's mouth twisted impatiently, and he drew a single savage slashing streak across the map, and plucked it up under Elof s nose."That!"

Elof whistled softly. "That they'd form a pattern, yes. I learned something about the flow of earthfires from the Mastersmith, and more among the duergar -that within the shell of the world there are vast and shifting stresses, that the shell is broken along many lines…"

"Like fractures in fatigued metal, you mean?"

"Aye, very like. And it is along these that the earthfires break out at their fiercest. One such ran up through the Meneth Scahas in our old homeland, and among the Nordenbergen; but in our Eastland, almost none, and no fire-mountains. Whereas here… But I never foresaw that the line would run thus!" His finger traced the streak of dark ash that linked the marked fire-mountains in a single straight line, dead straight across the land of Kerys. And some two-thirds of the way along that line the finger slowed and rested, and a tremor of excitement crept into his voice. "Nor that Elan Gorhen-yan would sit so squarely upon it!"

"You can't be that precise!"

"Close enough! Somewhere here, somewhere by here…"

"Such as?" objected Roc, seeing Elof cast about like a hunting dog on the scent. "Do we not

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.