"Clayton Emery - Netheril 03 - Mortal Consequences" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

blacked out.
The lurker had enough intelligence to track Knucklebones as a threat, so it curled itself almost
double and sprang to arch away. The grim thief pursued. Outlined in white leather, like a body under a
sheet, she saw Sunbright's shoulders, his elbows vainly pressing against the living prison, and the
thrust of his jaw. His hands, she guessed, were pinned by his ears. Bad, considering what she had to
do.
Stumbling, diving, combining power and grace, she slammed the knife at Sunbright's face. The
razor-sharp blade skimmed through the first layers of white hide, then parted to show tanned flesh.
The snow lurker twisted away, but she pressed on, twisting as if carving a steak from a mad cow.
From deep inside she heard a gasp, and took courage that her lover was still alive. With a final wrench,
she hollered, "Give me your hands!"
The wound was healing fast, but Sunbright's fingers protruded through the slit for just a second. In
that second, the nimble thief rammed the pommel of the great sword into Sunbright's numbed fingers.
Then the gap sealed, or tried to, for the sword blade projected from inside the monster.
Exhausted by her mad dashes, Knucklebones dropped, unable to close for fear of being sheared
herself. She could only pray to Shar, the God of Thieves, the Greater Power of the Gray Waste; with
herself trapped in a white waste.
The lurker fought, rolled, curled, twisted, but even banging the ground couldn't shake the steel
blade from Sunbright's iron grip. Through a mist of her own breath, Knucklebones watched,
fascinated, as the barbarian's trapped arms flexed, pushed, unbent.
Then the great hooked sword Harvester of Blood sliced through the lurker like an axe through fog.
One second the white rolled body was whole, the next a rent six feet long slit it like a fish. From
the rent spilled a gasping, blue-faced, white-smeared Sunbright, who collapsed on the snow, melting it
with his body heat.
Knucklebones wept for joy out of one good eye, ran to her huge lover, and grabbed his shoulder to
pull him upright. The ravenous snow lurker was already curling back, slithering, pursuing.
"RunтАФat an angleтАФto its path!" Sunbright wheezed. He was pale but smeared with blood, eyes
red, throat raw. Assisted by the thief, he gamely jogged in his big boots across the trampled snow.
They ran and ran, stumbling and lurching, always at an angle from the deadly pursuer that rippled
along the snow after them with the smooth grace of a manta ray swimming under water. Yet slowly
the two humans pulled away, for the huge beast was tired. And finally, glancing over her shoulder,
Knucklebones saw nothing.
"Wh-where did it go?"
Sunbright slammed to a halt, sobbed for breath so hard he drooled, but he pointed out a shimmering
square on the snow. Knucklebones saw the white surface ripple and tremble, then lie smooth as if
never trodden. The effect was all the weirder because their footprints began just at the edge of the
silent square. The lurker had burrowed under the snow within seconds.
"Will it come after us?"
"No, but let's keepтАФwalkingтАФanyway." Plodding, trudging, they left the disturbed spot far behind.
Only then did Sunbright collapse to his knees and wash his bloodied face clean with snow.
"I must beтАФ" he rasped, "тАФthe only barbarian to everтАФescape a snow lurker! Thanks to your deft
hand."
"I was afraid I'd split your skin to the skull!" she admitted. Knucklebones's knees were weak, so
she sank beside him. The barbarian didn't mind the snow and cold, but she found kneeling so chilly it
was painful. Born in a lofty city that drifted south in winter, she had barely seen snow a dozen times in
her life. Now she was surrounded by leagues of it. She'd never get used to this frozen wasteland. There
wasn't even wind to fill it.
"There were ants, too," she panted. "Big white ones that bit."
"Just a nuisance. Brush them off."
Knucklebones fingered her ear, and found bloody scabs. Her flesh was too numb to feel much pain,