2022-09-18 15:27:15Your fate is written from birth to death, even you were born in full accordance with the rules, almost as old as your entire family. The service is so closely intertwined with life that you yourself sometimes do not understand where one ends and another begins. You also chose your wife for yourself, finally and irrevocably, and all that remains is just to love her with all your heart. Not a step to the left, not a step to the right: there are boundaries for everything. There is only one freedom - freedom of choice. You are free to run away, leaving everything, or stay, but then you will also have to accept everything. More is not given. But more is not required!
Prologue
The storm was leaving the raid.
Returned home - to the sea, which was born. She left like a ship, under the sails of purple clouds. She left, leaving that special freshness spilled in the air, which poetically inclined personalities refer to as “the first breath of the newborn world”, and everyone else scolds for its piercing dampness.
The waves, which hit the sides with frightening force not so long ago, are now just gently stroking the tarred boards. Moonlight spills across the wet deck.
- Raise kolms [1] !
The end of the command merges with the clatter of feet, dying down somewhere on the forecastle. Two triangular sails begin to slowly creep up.
- Navigator: leaving the raid, half-knot drift!
A handful of casually dropped words are followed by a short pause, after which the ship, obeying the confident hands of the sailors, smoothly turns to the wind.
— Sailing masters: sea readiness!
A short fraction of the trampling, and the silence of the morning twilight is again broken only by the kisses of the waves on the right cheekbone of the fessa [2] .
The fading wind lazily plays with wet sails, but the clapping sounds only emphasize the intensity of the conversation between the two shadows on the deckhouse roof of the graceful stern.
Don't worry, everything is moving towards the intended goal. - The voice of one of the night owls is deliberately calm, which in itself is not the best way to instill calm in others.
- I agree. But at the right speed? - yells the second.
- Lamma [3] will arrive on time, dan [4] .
- And everything else? Are you sure of success?
As much as you can ever be sure of anything. Deadlines are carefully calculated. Coincidence? They won't.
- Indeed? - Dry laugh. “Let it be known to you, captain, there is not a single thing in the world that can escape the influence of the basic law of life.
— What does it consist of, dear dan? - In the voice of the first, a slight condescension is heard: something like this they talk with an unintelligent, but very touchy teenager.
— If something can go awry, it will certainly go, captain! Therefore I and...
- Sail! - A sailor rolls down from the "crow's nest", and there is so much sincere joy in his voice that one can assume that the lookout was promised a couple of coins for additional zeal.
“See, it's all right. We just have to hand over the cargo and return home.
- Home ... - thoughtfully, but still as anxious as before, drawled the second. - I would not like to return under the distribution.
“You don’t believe in success at all, my dear dan?”
— I believe. But faith, captain, is nothing before the will.
- Yours or? .. - the captain tries to clarify.
“By the will of providence,” comes the gloomy reply.
The sky is brightening in the east. The day is coming. But first... Morning always comes first, doesn't it?
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77
Four hours, this, of course, is not a complete rest, but at least it turned out to freshen up a little, otherwise, in fact, a day on your feet fogs up your mind. He called Dmitry, found out which of those present was more respected, and on his advice he called three more. I need people who can be senior in my absence, and for this I need to explain what I want from them and what the plan is all the same. I had a conversation with Dmitry, because I know him better.- So what did you think, Mirage?- A little about the situation: the streets are clogged with undead, I did not find the living from the word at all. Apparently we are the only ones in this city. Now about the main thing: while reading a book about the undead, I found an interesting fact - after death, the bodies of the undead are burned, as they burn well, like an oiled rag. There are thousands of bodies here, outside the walls of the city they lie in a dense ring to the very walls, and in the city itself, although not so m
76
The further path was marked by the passage of a dozen more traps. And finally, in front of me is the wall of the secret passage. The hope of getting out outside the city was not destined to come true, gently opening the sash, I slipped out in invisibility right behind the zombies. Moreover, the zombies stood in a tight wall, shoulder to shoulder, and so far as the gaze spread. In order to inspect everything, I carefully climbed the wall to the roof, fortunately, my stealth skills have already taken a big step forward, and I'm not talking about the level of invisibility, but about understanding how to put a foot, how to move silently, which side to enter , so as not to impersonate any third-party factor.The view from the roof amazed me. All the streets were densely packed with standing zombies, they stood everywhere, on every free heel of space, all the floors of each of the buildings were occupied, where there was an exit to the roof, they stood on the roof, and all this without a si
75
We were very lucky - by the time the undead broke into the city, we had blocked all the passages and windows, remade the chimney, closed the fresh masonry with oak shields, and collected firewood and supplies. And, most importantly, while working, people gained the determination to fight, now there was no crying, but only quiet and calm conversations. The people who showed their leadership qualities during the work organized the sorting of supplies without mention. The breakthrough occurred in the evening, at which time the parapet¹ of the bodies reached the top of the wall, and an avalanche of undead flowed into the city. We could not watch everything, I wanted to go out in invisibility for reconnaissance, but there are so many undead that they will trample the invisible. Therefore, one had to sit and listen to the growling, the beat of thousands of feet shaking the ground, and the screams of people. I really wanted to help them, but there was no such opportunity, our she
74
Finally a city. The transition turned out to be tiring, so I decided to rest in the city for a day. The town is small, but located on an important trade road, so many caravans stop here all the time. The walls are not high, but thick enough, they are more from robbers than enemies from abroad. I decided to stay at the Prancing Pony Hotel, which is run by a young couple with a young son. I liked the hotel with a simple but interesting style. When I went inside, I was amazed: a simple house on the outside, unremarkable from the rest, inside looked like a marvelous garden. All the walls were covered with vines and, remarkably, with bunches of grapes. At the entrance, a security guard stopped me and warned that it was possible to pick grapes, but only visitors to the establishment, and as much as they need for food now, cannot take grapes with them to their room and take them out of the hotel. A reasonable rule of thumb is to ensure that there is eno
73
It seems that the job is done, but it's too early to relax. The first desire was to wake up all the slaves, but after a little thought, I decided that it was better to leave this matter until the morning. Firstly, it is difficult to predict the reaction of people to a man in black who appeared out of nowhere and soaked fifty people. And if this appearance is also at night, but by the light of fires, uuuu. So we clear the leader's tent from the corpse and climb there on the bainki. The morning is wiser than the evening, although it is not clear why, the evening is older, which means that he has more experience. As soon as he fell into bed, he immediately jumped from a sharp cry right above his ear. This is the same girl who was with the leader, I was in the middle of a fight and forgot about the poor fellow, and she sits there, shaking, apparently, she hid here all day, and I accidentally lay down on her. And once such an incident happened, you need to calm down. To begin with, I took
72
The day was beautiful, today I had to drive through a pine forest. The sun broke through the tent of branches, playing like bunnies in the morning dew. The camel, to which I never bothered to give a name, easily walked along the coniferous carpet, breathing easily and naturally. Today I was going to make a decent push and leave most of the trip behind me. The road ran easily, from the soul poured out of nowhere a pop-up song: “You are a sailor, I am a sailor. You are a fisherman, I am a fisherman. You are on land, I am on the sea. We will never meet." Further, for the life of me, I don’t remember, but I sang these four lines for probably an hour, until a branch from a fallen tree flew over me. It was so unexpected that I choked on a sailor, and then, by inertia, it turned out that I was a crack. I didn't think about it, didn't think about it. I am sitting, thinking about the intricacies of fate and the love of a sailor and a quack, and what should she do, poor fellow,
