"Dragonlance Dragons, Vol. 3 - The Dragons of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (DragonLance)

could stand it no longer.
A stroke of lightning erupted from the blue monster so violently, it propelled
the pitiful ogre back fifty feet through the air, then smashed him into the
wreckage of a crude wooden dwelling. He dropped heavily to the ground, his
charred body spasming with the massive electrical charges that surged through
him. Sparks twined across his blackened, terrorized face. Tendrils of acrid
smoke rose from the dry wood, and in seconds the whole structure was awash in
hissing, popping flame.
The ogre did not rise again.
Her horned nose raised to the sky, the blue dragon let out a mighty roar. She
loved the sound of her own voice thundering across the stricken land. She
stepped forward, digging her talons deeply into the pile of ogre bodies, now
nothing more than carrion. A few more steps, and the dragon tensed her powerful
leg muscles, then catapulted herself into the air.
The dragon beat her wings furiously, accelerating as she climbed into the late
summer sky. Clamor loved speed almost as much as she loved sound╤velocity and
volume consumed her. Faster and faster she flew, fueled by a sudden rush of
energy and exhilarated by the flow of cool Khalkist air across her dusky blue
hide. Urging her rider to hang on tight, the dragon banked steeply. Clamor
dipped her long snout and folded back her powerful wings, then shot toward the
ground again like an elven arrow, skimming over the blackened ogre village.
"What did you think of that, Jerne?"
Clamor was too pleased with her work to notice that her rider made no reply.
Surveying the destruction, the satisfied dragon rumbled deep in her throat╤it
was as close as she could come to imitating the chuckle of her Dark Knight
partner. She swept her great head back and forth, taking in the remains of rough
huts still smoking from the assault of her lightning breath, and crude stone
dwellings blasted to rubble. The smell of charred flesh curled around her
nostrils and she noted the ogre remains, scorched nearly beyond recognition,
lying within the wreckage. Still more corpses were strewn about the center of
the village. But these bodies bore no marks at all. Baskets and tools lay next
to them, dropped just before their owners themselves fell. The pigs and lizards
the villagers raised for food likewise had collapsed in their pens.
"Nothing like the last time we were here, is it, Jerne?" Clamor asked coldly.
Was it only a month ago that the two of them, along with the rest of their wing
of knights, had swept through the land of Blode to conscript all able warriors
for service in the Minions of Darkness? "So much has happened since then. Our
invasion..."
Lost in her thoughts, the dragon circled around to overfly the village one last
time. She spread her wings wide to catch the air and coasted, reliving those
weeks of triumph during the hottest summer in even a dragon's memory. The armies
of the Knights of Takhisis, made up of fearsome dark paladins and their dragon
partners, had swept across the continent in a conquest unparalleled in any of
the Great Ages of Ansalon. "Do you remember how we crushed every nation like
twigs snapping beneath our feet? We taught them the meaning of true honor╤and
fear! The entire land bowed before the glory of Her Dark Majesty..."
Clamor faltered, not wanting to recall the last chapter of that momentous
summer. Instead, her heartbeat pounding in her head, she pumped her wings
against the sultry air and climbed again. After gaining altitude, she craned her
neck around for one last view of her handiwork. What looked like an ogre hunting