"Denning, Troy - Forgotten Realms - Legacy of the Draw 2 - Starless Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

He didn't understand completely, but thought that darthiir had something to do with the faeries, the surface elves. He was beginning to figure out then that he was in serious trouble this time, and would not so easily get away from this one.
"Abban del darthiir!" Jerlys cried again, and this time her tentacle rod, and not her hand, snapped at him from behind, all three tentacles pounding painfully into his right shoulder. He grabbed at the wound and fell flat to the stone, his right arm useless and the waves of pain rolling through him.
Jerlys struck again, at his back, but his sudden movement had saved him from a hit by all three of the tentacles.
His mind raced. He knew that he had to act fast. The female kept taunting him, smacking her rod against the alley walls, and every so often against his bleeding back. He knew for certain then that he had caught this female by surprise, that she was on a mission as secret as his own, and that he would not likely walk away from this encounter.
One of the tentacles slapped off the back of his head, dazing him. Still his right arm remained dead, weakened by the magic of a simultaneous three-strike.
But he had to act. He moved his left hand to his right hip, to his dirk, then changed his mind and brought it around the other side.
"Abban del darthiir!" Jerlys cried again, and her arm came forward.
He spun about and up to meet it, his sword, not of drow make, flaring angrily as it connected with the tentacles. There came a green flash, and one tentacle fell free, but one of the others snaked its way through the parry and hit him
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in the face.
"Jiwin!" the amused drow cried the word for play, and she elaborated most graciously, thanking him for his foolish retaliation, for making it all such fun.
"Play with this," he said back at her, and he came forward, straight ahead with the sword.
A globe of conjured darkness fell over him.
"Jivvin!" Jerlys laughed again and came forward to smack with her rod. But this one was no novice in fighting dark elves, and, to the female's surprise, she did not find him within her globe.
Around the side of the darkness he came, one arm hanging limp, but the other flashing this way and that in a mar-velous display of swordsmanship. This was a drow female, though, highly trained in the fighting arts and armed with a tentacle rod. She parried and countered, scoring another hit, laughing all the while.
She did not understand her opponent.
He came in a straightforward lunge again, spun about to the left as if to continue with a spinning overhand chop, then reversed his grip on the weapon, pivoted back to the right, and heaved the sword as though it were a spear.
The weapon's tip dove hungrily between the surprised female's breasts, sparking as it sliced through the fine drow armor-He followed the throw with a leaping somersault and kicked both feet forward so that they connected on the quivering sword hilt, plunging the weapon deeper into the malevolent female's chest.
The drow fell back against the rock pile, stumbling over it until the uneven wall of the stalagmite supported her at a half-standing angle, her red eyes locked in a wide stare.
"A pity, Jerlys," he whispered into her ear, and he softly kissed her cheek as he grasped the sword hilt and pointedly stepped on the writhing tentacles to pin them down on the floor. "What pleasures we might have known."
He pulled the sword free and grimaced as he considered the implications of this drow female's death. He couldn't deny the satisfaction, however, at taking back some of the control in his life. He hadn't gone through all his battles just
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to wind up a slave!
He left the alley a short while later, with Jerlys and her rod buried under the stones, and with a bounce returned to his step.
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Chapter 5
OVER THE YEARS
rizzt felt the gazes on him. They were elven eyes, he knew, likely staring down the length of readied arrows. The ranger casually continued his trek through the Moonwood, his weapons tucked away and the hood of his forest-green cloak back off his head, revealing his long mane of white hair and his ebon-skinned elven features.
The sun made its lazy way through the leafy green trees, splotching the forest with dots of pale yellow. Drizzt did not avoid these, as much to show the surface elves that he was no ordinary drew as for his honest love of the warmth of sunlight. The trail was wide and smooth, unexpected in a supposedly wild and thick forest.
As the minutes turned into an hour and the forest deepened around him, Drizzt began to wonder if he might pass through the Moonwood without incident. He wanted no trouble, certainly, wanted only to be on with, and be done with, his quest.
He came into a small clearing some time later. Several logs had been arranged into a square around a stone-blocked
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fire pit. This was no ordinary campsite, Drizzt knew, but a designated meeting place, a shared campground for those who would respect the sovereignty of the forest and the creatures living within its sheltered boughs.
Drizzt walked the camp's perimeter, searching the trees. Looking to the moss bed at the base of one huge oak, the drow saw several markings. Though time had blurred their lines, one appeared to be a rearing bear, another a wild pig. These were the marks of rangers, and with an approving nod, the drow searched the lower boughs of the tree, finally discovering a well-concealed hollow. He reached in gingerly and pulled out a pack of dried food, a hatchet, and a skin filled with fine wine. Drizzt took only a small cup of the wine, but regretted that he could not add anything to the cache, since he would need all the provisions he could cany, and more, in his long trek through the dangerous Under-dark.
He replaced the stores after using the hatchet to split some nearby deadwood, then gently carved his own ranger mark, the unicorn, in the moss at the base of the trunk and returned to the nearest log to start a fire for his meal.
"You are no ordinary drow," came a melodic voice from behind him before his meal was even cooked. The language was Elvish, as was the pitch of the voice, more melodic than that of a human.
Drizzt turned slowly, understanding that several bows were probably again trained on him from many different angles. A single elf stood before him. She was a young maiden, younger than even Drizzt, though Drizzt had lived only a tenth of his expected life. She wore forest colors, a green cloak, much like Drizzt's, and a brown tunic and leggings, with a longbow resting easily over one shoulder and a slender sword belted on one hip. Her black hair shone so as to be bluish and her skin was so pale that it reflected that blue hue. Her eyes, too, bright and shining, were blue flecked with gold. She was a silver elfЧa moon elf, Drizzt knew.
In his years of living on the surface, Drizzt Do'Urden had encountered few surface elves, and those had been gold elves. He had encountered moon elves only once in his life, on his first trip to the surface in a dark elf raid in which his
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kin had slaughtered an small elf clan. That horrible memory rushed up at Drizzt as he faced this beautiful and delicate creature. Only one moon elf had survived that encounter, a young child that Drizzt had secretly buried beneath her mother's mutilated body. That act of treachery against the evil drow had brought severe repercussions, costing Drizzfs family the favor of Lloth, and, in the end, costing Zak'nafein, Drizzt's father, his life.
Drizzt faced a moon elf once more, a maiden perhaps thirty years of age, with sparkling eyes. The ranger felt the blood draining from his face. Was this the region to which he and the drow raiders had come?
"You are no ordinary drow," the elf said again, still using the Elvish tongue, her eyes flashing dangerously and her tone grim.
Drizzt held his hands out to the side. He realized that he should say something, but simply couldn't think of any wordsЧor couldn't get them past the lump in his throat.
The elf maiden's eyes narrowed; her lower jaw trembled, and her hand instinctively dropped to the hilt of her sword.
"I am no enemy," Drizzt managed to say, realizing that he must either speak or, likely, fight.
The maiden was on him in the blink of a lavender eye, sword flashing.