Eugene_Mel: переводы

→Marcus was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I’m saying that only a fool will discount him simply because he’s furyless. Crows, he’s already checked a Canim invasion, helped forge an alliance with the Marat, and personally prevented your assassination at Wintersend. How much more bloody qualified does he need to he?”

→“Are you saying you’ll be willing to work for him?”

→“Loyalty,” Gaius said, light irony in the word. “Even in you?”
“He saved my life,” Marcus said. “Didn’t have to. Nearly got himself killed doing it. He cares.”

→Gaius was silent for a long moment.
“It isn’t about furycraft, Gaius,” he said quietly. “It never has been. It’s about personal courage and will. He has it. It’s about the ability to lead. He can. It’s about inspiring loyalty. He does.”

→Marcus turned and waved a hand toward the Legion camp on the south side of the bridge. “He earned the respect of the men, and you know how rare that is. If he told this Legion to get on their feet, right now, and start marching out to take on the Canim, they’d do it. They’d follow him.”

→It was as simple as that.
The resistance of the Canim forces on the bridge did not simply waver—it abruptly vanished, as panic descended on them.

→At that time, on that bridge, before the terrible swords of the sons of Antil-lus, before the crushing power of the Knights Terra, before the blackened banner of the First Aleran and the reckless, frenzied charge of the Battlecrows, those two facts were what mattered.

→The First Aleran believed.
The Canim raiders weren’t sure.

→Battles are fought in muddy fields, in burning towns, in treacherous forests, in unforgiving mountains, and on the blood-spattered stones of contested bridges, Tavi realized. But battles are won within the minds and hearts of the soldiers fighting them. No force was defeated in battle until it believed that it was defeated. No force could be victorious unless it believed it could be victorious.

→Without battlements, the only real protection they offered the Canim was the simple impediment of movement caused by the walls themselves and the relatively small opening in them.

→Tavi fought to keep the lines stable, to get the wounded clear of the fighting before they were trampled. The desperate Canim rushed up onto the improvised battlements and threw themselves over, perfectly willing to fall rather than face the juggernaut of the First Aleran’s advance. A few even cast themselves off the bridge. It was a long, dangerous fall to the water from there, the maximum height of the bridge from its surface.

→Tavi was barely able to get his cohort into a more conventional fighting front, incorporating the Knights in its center, before the vengeful Alerans fell on the Canim. Canim screamed. Legionares went down.

→That opening, however, also slowed the Canim now attempting to flee. The legionares were slower on foot than their opponents, but caught up to them as the choke point in the wall stranded them on the northern side.

→The advance had to cover most of five hundred yards, all uphill to the defenses at the bridge’s apex—which had not, after all, been designed to defend against an assault from the Aleran side of the bridge.

→Max and Crassus pressed the assault, and Tavi led the Battlecrows after them. On the walls behind them, trumpets rang. Valiar Marcus had seen the Canim break, and the rest of the weary Legion began rushing forward to lend their strength and momentum to the advance.

→Amara glanced at Rook, who held Masha tight by the stream bank and had her head bowed, attempting to go unnoticed. “Even the little girl?”

→Aldrick bared his teeth in a snarl.
Lady Aquitaines lip lifted in a contemptuous sneer. “Odiana, dear?”

→Bernard placed the tip of his dagger lightly against the back of Lady Aquitaine ‘s neck, seized a fistful of her lustrous dark hair to hold her steady, and said, “You will kindly tell Aldrick to sheathe his sword, Your Grace.”

→“Children of murdered parents often grow up to seek revenge, Countess. That’s a bitter life with a terrible ending. I’d be doing her a kindness.”

→“No, Countess?” Lady Aquitaine said, her voice cold. “You know I am perfectly willing to kill every one of you rather than risk having you in my way. You know it.”