"David Eddings - The Legacy Of The Drow II - Starless Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

right eye gone.
More than BruenorтАЩs eye had been wounded, Drizzt knew.
More than that dwarvish body, rock tough and resilient, had been scarred. BruenorтАЩs soul was the part most
pained, slashed by the loss of a boy he had called his son. Was the dwarf as resilient in spirit as in body?
Drizzt knew not the answer. At that moment, staring at Bruenor тАШs scarred face, Drizzt felt that he should
stay, should
sit beside his friend and help heal the wounds.
It was a passing thought. What wounds might still come to the dwarf? Drizzt reminded himself. To the dwarf
and to all his remaining friends?


Catti-brie tossed and squirmed, reliving that fateful moment, as she did every night, at least, every night that
exhaustion allowed her to find sleep. She heard Wulfgar тАШs song to Tempus, his god of battle, saw the
serene look in the mighty barbarianтАЩs eye, the look that denied the obvious agony, the look that allowed him
to chop up
at the loose stone ceiling, though blocks of heavy granite had begun to tumble all about him.
Catti-brie saw Wulfgar тАШs garish wounds, the white of bone, his skin ripped away from his ribs by the
sharklike teeth of the yochlol, an evil, extradimensional beast, an ugly lump of waxy flesh that resembled a
half melted candle.
The roar as the ceiling dropped over her love brought Catti-brie up in her bed, sitting in the darkness, her
thick auburn hair matted to her face by cold sweat. She took a long moment to control her breathing, told
herself repeatedly that it was a dream, a terrible memory, but ultimately, an event that had passed. The
torchlight outlining her door comforted and calmed her.
She wore only a light slip, and her thrashing had knocked her blankets away. Goose bumps rose on her
arms, and she shivered, cold and damp and miserable. She roughly retrieved the thickest of her covers and
pulled them tightly to her neck, then lay flat on her back, staring up into the darkness.
Something was wrong. She sensed that something was out of place.
Rationally, the young woman told herself that she was imagining things, that her dreams had unnerved her.
The world was not right for Catti-brie, far from right, but she told herself forcefully that she was in Mithril Hall,
surrounded by an army of friends.
She told herself that she was imagining things.


Drizzt was a long way from Mithril Hall when the sun came up.
He didnтАЩt sit and enjoy the dawn this day, as was his custom. He hardly looked at the rising sun, for it
seemed to him now a false hope of things that could not be. When the initial glare had diminished, the drow
looked out to the south and east, far across the mountains, and remembered. His hand went to his neck, to
the hypnotic ruby pendant
Regis had given him. He knew how much Regis relied on this gem, loved it, and considered again the
halflingтАЩs sacrifice, the sacrifice of a true friend. Drizzt had known true friendship; his life had been rich
since he had walked into a forlorn land called Icewind Dale and met Bruenor Battlehammer and his adopted
daughter, Catti-brie. It pained Drizzt to think that he might never again see any of them.
The drow was glad to have the magical pendant, though, an item that might allow him to get answers and
return to his friends, but he held more than a little guilt for his decision to tell Regis of his departure.
That choice seemed a weakness to Drizzt, a need to rely on friends who, at this dark time, had little to give.
He could rationalize it, though, as a necessary safeguard for the friends he would leave behind. He had
instructed Regis to tell Bruenor the truth in five weeks, so that, in case DrizztтАЩs journey proved unsuccessful,
Clan Battlehammer would at least have time to prepare for the darkness that might yet come.
It was a logical act, but Drizzt had to admit that he had told Regis because of his own need, because he had
to tell someone. And what of the magical mask? he wondered. Had he been weak in refusing that, too? The