"Dragonlance - The War of Souls 03 - Dragons of a Vanished Moon - Tracy Hickman & Margaret Weis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragonlance)

right hand on the wall, moved with the wall, never let go. Thus,
he reasoned, he would be able to find his way out. When he heard Malys's voice, strident and high-pitchedЧan odd sound to come from such a massive creatureЧMirror halted. Keeping his hand firmly against the wall, he hunkered down onto the smooth floor, shrouded in the lair's cool darkness. He quieted even his breathing, fearful that she might hear him and come seeking him.
Mirror crouched in the blue dragon's lair and awaited the outcome
with dread.
Skie knew he was dying. His heart lurched and shivered in his rib cage. He fought for every breath. He longed to lie down and rest, to close his eyes, to lose himself in the past. To once more spread his wings that were the color of heaven and fly up among the clouds. To hear Kitiara's voice again, her firm commands,
her mocking laughter. To feel her hands, sure and capable, on the reins, guiding him unerringly to the fiercest, hottest part of the battle. To revel again in the clash of arms and smell the blood, to feel the flesh rend beneath his talons and hear Kitiara's exultant battle cry, challenging all comers. To return to the stables, have his wounds dressed, and wait for her to come, as she always did, to sit down beside him and relive the battle. She would come to him, leaving behind those puny humans who sought to love her. Dragon and rider, they were a teamЧa deadly team.
"So, Skie," said a voice, a hated voice. Malys's head thrust inside the entrance to the lair, blotted out the sunlight. "I was
misinformed. You're not dead yet, I see."
Skie roused himself. His dreams, his memories had been very real. This was unreality.
"No, I am not dead," he growled. His talons dug deep into the rock, fighting against the pain, forcing himself to remain standing.
Malys insinuated more of her great bulk inside his lairЧher head and shoulders, front talons and neck. Her wings remained folded at her side, her hind feet and tail dangled down the cliff
face. Her small, cruel eyes swept over him disdainfully.
Discounting him, she searched for the reason she had comeЧhis totem. She found it, elevated in the center of the lair, and her
eyes glistened.
"Don't mind me," she said coolly. "You were dying, I believe. Please continue. I don't mean to interrupt. I just came to collect a few mementos of our time together."
Reaching out her talon, Malys began to weave a magical web around the skulls of his totem. Skie saw eyes in the skulls of the totem. He could sense his Queen's presence. Takhisis had no care for him. Not anymore. He was of no use to her now. She had eyes only for Malys. Fine. Skie wished them joy together. They deserved each other.
His legs trembled. They could not support his weight any longer, and he slumped to the floor of his lair. He was angry with himself, furious. He had to fight, to take a stand, to at least leave his mark upon Malys. He was so weak, shivering. His heart pounded as if it would burst in his chest.
"Skie, my lovely Blue!" Kitiara's voice came to him, mocking, laughing. "What, you sluggard, still asleep? Wake up! We have battles to fight this day. Death to deal. Our enemies do not
slumber, you may be certain of that."
Skie opened his eyes. There she stood before him, her blue dragon armor shining in the sun. Kitiara smiled her crooked smile and, lifting her arm, she pointed.
"There stands your foe, Skie. You have one fight left in you. One more battle to go. Then you may rest."
Skie raised his head. He could not see Malys. His sight was going rapidly, draining away with his life. He could see Kitiara, though, could see where she pointed. He drew in a breath, his last breath. He had better make it a good one.
The breath mingled with the sulfur in his belly. He exhaled.
Lightning cracked and sizzled, split the air. Thunder boomed, shook the mountain. The sound was horrendous, but he could still hear Malys's shriek of rage and pain. He could not see what damage
had done to her, but he guessed it had been considerable.
Enraged, Malys attacked him. Her razor-sharp talons dug through his scales, ripped apart his flesh, tore a gaping hole in his flank.
Skie felt nothing, no more pain, no more fear.
Pleased, he let his head sink to the floor of his lair.
"Well done, my lovely Blue," came Kitiara's voice, and he was proud to feel the touch of her hand on the side of his neck. "Well done. . . ."
Skie's weak thunderbolt had caused Malys no real harm, beyond a jarring, tingling sensation that danced through her body and knocked a large chunk of scaly flesh off the joint of her upper left foreleg. She felt the pain more to her pride than to her great, bloated body, and she lashed out at the dying Skie, ripping and rending his flesh until the lair was awash with blood. Eventually,
she realized she was doing nothing but maltreating an unfeeling corpse.
Her fury spent, Malys resumed her dismantling of his totem, prepared it for transport back to her lair in the new Goodlund Range, the Peak of Malys.
Gloating over her prize, eyeing with satisfaction the large number of skulls, Malys could feel her own power swell just handling them.
She had never had much use for Krynn dragons. In a world where they were the dominant species, Krynn dragons were feared and revered by the rest of the world's puny inhabitants and had thus become spoiled. Sometimes, it was true, Krynn's soft-skins had taken up arms against the dragons. Malys had heard accounts of these contests from Skie, heard him go on and on about some event known as the War of the Lance, about the thrill of battle and the bonds formed between dragonrider and dragon.
Clearly Skie had been away from his native world for too long, if he considered such childlike flailings to be true battles. Malys had gone up against a few of these dragonriders, and she'd never seen anything so amusing in her life. She thought back to
her old world, where not a day went by but that some bloody fieht erupted to establish hierarchy among the clan.
Survival had been a daily battle, then, one reason Malys and the others had been glad to find this fat and lazy world. She did not miss those cruel times, but she tended to look back upon them with nostalgia, like an old war veteran reliving his past. She and her kind had taught these weakling Krynn dragons a valuable lesson-those who survived. The Krynn dragons had bowed down before her, had promised to serve and worship her. And then came the night of that strange storm.
The Krynn dragons changed. Malys could not say exactly what was different. The Reds and Blacks and Blues continued to serve her, to come when summoned and answer her every beck and call, but she had the feeling they were up to something.
She would often catch them in whispered conversations that broke off whenever she appeared. And, of late, several had gone missing. She'd received reports of Krynn dragons bearing dragonridersЧDark Knights of NerakaЧinto battle against the Solamnics at Solanthus.
Malys had no objections to the dragons killing Solamnics, but she should have been consulted first. Lord Targonne would have done so, but he had been slain, and it was in the reports of his death that Malys had first heard the most disturbing news of allЧ the appearance on Krynn of a god.
Malys had heard rumors of this godЧthe very god who had brought the world to this part of the universe. Malys had seen no signs of this god, however, and could only conclude that the god had been daunted by her arrival and had abandoned the field. The idea that the god might be lying low, building up her strength, never occurred to MalysЧnot surprising, for she came from a world devoid of guile, a world ruled by strength and might.
Malys began to hear reports of this One God and of the One God's championЧa human girl-child named Mina. Malys did not Pay much attention to these, mainly because this Mina did nothing
to annoy Malys. Mina's actions actually pleased Malys. Mina removed the shield from over Silvanesti and destroyed the
sniveling, self-serving green dragon, Cyan Bloodbane. The
Silvanesti elves were properly cowed, crushed beneath the boots of the Dark Knights.
Malys had not been pleased to hear that her cousin Beryl was about to attack the land of the Qualinesti elves. Not that Malys cared anything for the elves, but such actions broke the pact. Malys didn't trust Beryl, didn't trust her ambition and her greed. Malys might have been tempted to intervene and put a stop to this, but she had been assured by Lord Targonne, late leader of the Dark Knights, that he had the situation under control. Too late Malys found out that Targonne didn't even have his own
situation under control.
Beryl flew off to attack and destroy Qualinesti, and she was successful. The Qualinesti elves were now fleeing the wreckage of their homeland like the vermin they were. True, Beryl managed to get herself killed in the process, but she had always been an impulsive, over-emotional, irrational nincompoop.
The green dragon's death was reported to Malys by two of Beryl's minionsЧred dragons, who cringed and groveled properly but who, Malys suspected, were chortling out of the sides of their mouths.
Malys did not like the way these reds gloated over her cousin's death. They didn't show the proper respect. Nor did Malys like what she heard of the reports of Beryl's death. It had the whiff of the god about it. Beryl might have been a braying donkey of a dragon, but she was an immense and powerful beast, and Malys could not envision any circumstances under which a band of elves could have taken her down without divine assistance.