"Anthony Piers - NightMare" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

"Abducted into the army, moron! Caught by the offi-
cial press gang. Your happy civilian life is over."

"No!" Stunk cried, appalled. "I don't want to fight. Not
that way, with weapons and rules and things. Tell me it
isn't true!"

"I'll bet you wish you'd had the baby instead, huh, gob-
lin!" the stork gloated, cradling the letter with his wings.

"Why would I be summoned to war? We're at relative
peace with the dragons and the griffins!"

"It's the Mundane invasion, oaf. The Nextwave of con-
quest. The horrible Mundanes are coming to make dragon
stew and goblins too."

"No! No!" Stunk screamed, his horror growing by stum-
bles and lurches and faltering footsteps. "I don't want to be
goblin stew! I'm only a young, ignorant lout! I have my
whole ornery life ahead of me! I won't go!"

"Then you are a draft evader or a deserter," the stork
said, licking his beak with an orange tongue. "Do you
know what they do to deserters?"

"I don't want to know!"

"They feed them to dragons." The stork was gloating;

waves of gloat radiated out from him like ripples on a
greasy puddle. Behind him a dragon loomed, snorting up
little warm-up snorts of purple smoke.

"They'll never get me alive!" Stunk cried, working up to
a superior degree of cowardice. He charged out of his hole
in the wall, fleeing the draft notice. But already the dragon
was pursuing him hungrily, pumping up extra-purple
smoke, the kind that not only roasted goblins, but smelled
pretty bad, too. Salivary smoke.

Stunk fled screaming, feeling the monster's fire hot at
his back. He paid no attention to where his feet were going.
He was beginning to outdistance the dragon, but knew he
was not yet out of its range; that tongue of flame could
reach him any time.

Suddenly he was at the brink of a ledge, unable to stop.
His horror doubled as he fell off. He saw the hard rock of