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

out of arrow range. But they did not cheer long.

The cannon's first shot tore out a wooden bridge that
connected a tower to a wall; the next cracked the tower itself.
A third blew a hole in the thick, iron-bound drawbridge. The
besiegers advanced with scaling-ladders. But as they ap-
proached, the broken drawbridge dropped, still sound enough
for a troop of soldiers to sally forth; obviously, more of them
than the besiegers had expected. A grim battle began outside
the walls, in which the men of the castle seemed well able to
take care of themselves.

After watching these practices of the humans for some
time from within the forest. Nonesuch wandered away, deep
in thought. He had seen the trebuchets, which must have been
like those that had tossed his father around so easily. The new,
noisy weapon was obviously much more powerful still. Now
the cannon fired again. Nonesuch turned back and saw the
ball bounce off the wall and smash into a siege tower, splitting
it and spilling out soldiers like ants from an anthill.

He decided not to watch any more. In a short time the
besiegers and the besieged paused to stare at his wide wings
cleaving the air as the dragon flew away into the cloudy sky.
He stayed aloft all day. till his strength was almost exhausted,

39

looking at the changing cloud shapes below, as if they could
describe how the world had changed.

So Nonesuch did not see what actually happened at the
castle. He did not see the cannon, loaded beyond its capacity
in an attempt to breech the wall, explode and kill the gun crew,
half a dozen knights who had gathered round to watch, and
three of the horses. But even if he had seen this, it would not
have altered the firm judgment he reached during his flight:

that the days of dragons as great, powerful beasts were num-
bered. That, no matter how big and strong a dragon was, the
humans could make something bigger, or at least stronger.

Nonesuch's scales bristled as this came home to him. His
flight was slowed, and he almost flipped over in the air. For
one glorious moment, he thought of facing the cannon below
and dying nobly in combat. Then he remembered the force of
the cannon balls. Humans might cast themselves vainly against
unbeatable odds. This seemed to be their nature, his grand-
mother had said with disgust. But their ways were not his.
Here was a new problem, and there was no one to guide him.