"Kushner,.Donn.-.A.Book.DragonUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

morning, Greedyguts was awakened from a sound sleep, and
dreams of spicy sausages, by an extremely irritating cater-
wauling. He opened his eyes, then closed them again, hoping
the sound would go away. On the contrary, it grew shriller and
more insistent. Greedyguts unwillingly dragged his head to
the mouth of the cavern.

In the valley below stood a bandy-legged peasant squeez-
ing a bagpipe, an instrument that the dragon had never before
heard. Beside the peasant was a small, neat man in black
armor, his helmet under his arm and a businesslike expression
on his face. When Greedyguts's head came in sight the knight
gave a signal and three red-clad musicians raised their long

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trumpets and blew three unharmonic notes. These sounds,
and the continuing wail of the bagpipe, struck directly on
Greedyguts's nerves.

It was a challenge not to be ignored. Though he was still
groggy from last night's visit to the Lord Mayor's banquet,
and though the cavern opened out into a narrow ravine which
hampered his movements, Greedyguts sallied forth, huffing
and growling as fiercely as was possible for a creature who
mainly wanted to go back to sleep. He began to leap up and
down, to obtain proper clearance for his wings in preparation
for the great sweep downwards towards his puny foes, who
continued making their dreadful noises.

The knight waved his hand again. The bagpipe and trumpets
fell silent. On the hillside, men-at-arms carefully aimed two
catapults and three trebuchets, whose pivoted beams were
loaded with great stones. As the dragon leaped once more into
the air, these stones were released. Two of them struck
Greedyguts, flinging him against the high wall above his
cavern's mouth. While the stones' momentum held him against
the wall, the catapults hurled their man-long arrows, skewer-
ing the dragon like one of the roast oxen of which he had been
so fond.

As the dragon's twisted body slipped down past the mouth
of the cavern, a howl of such sorrow was heard that tears rose
to the hardened soldiers' eyes; they all crossed themselves,
even the Welsh knight. It was the dragon's guilty soul escaping
his evil body, they thought. No one suspected it was the
dragon's mother, wailing her foolish son's fall.

When his father was killed. Nonesuch was away on his
"flyaround." It had long been the custom for young dragons,