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

slightly, so dense were the minerals that made up its skin. It had hands and feet like a human, but no
eyelids, so its blue eyes were round and staring and frightening. No hair, no fingernails or toenails, no
marks on its body except the dense flint.
It talked to itself in a gravelly voice like steel on a grindstone. The gulguthhydra perked up, stilled
its lashing heads and tentacles to wait until the flint creature was close enough to seize. This being
would make a fine meal.
"Out. This must be the way out. Must be. Outside, finally. Out..."
Closer trod the crusty feet of the monster. The hydra lunged.
Three heads struck as one. One dived from the right, one from the left, one straight down, like three
fingers snatching a morsel. Toothy mouths clamped onto the flint creature in the same second, biting
hard and gnashing fast to rip the prey to flinders, to reduce it to bloody gobbets before it could escape,
or even limp away wounded.
The flinty fiend was knocked to its knees under the triple assault. One arm and one shoulder were
pinned by mouths, and its head had been sucked into the maw of the largest head. Yet fangs broke on
the stony hide, so the gulguthhydra's mouths filled with chips and black blood. Champing furiously
didn't tear the stone skin, or even dent it.
Then the human monster struck back.
From one fist lanced a long white beam like a sword of moonfire. The blade exploded through the
roof of one mouth and pierced the tiny brain and scaly skull so the head snapped back, then hung
loose, dangling. From the other fist poured a rain of acid that smoked hydra flesh in a thousand places.
Black blood shot in jets to stain the walls and ceiling. From the flint creature's mouth shot a bolt of
pure energy like venom. The invisible arrow-shaped jolt sliced through the biggest head, shearing it
open like a rotten melon, then plunged deep into the hydra's writhing, hilly shape. The thorny body
was torn open, the many-chambered heart sundered.
With a scream from four mouths, the hydra whipped heads and tentacles in a frenzy until suddenly
it stopped cold, and collapsed into a heap, stinking like charred garbage.
 Spitting out scales and tooth chips, the flint monster arose, mounted the sodden, sundered carcass,
climbed over, and moved on. If Prinquis, lord of this hell, had anchored the hydra here, then this
passage, ". . . must be a way out. Outside. Got to be. Chance to get out..." But half a mile on, the flint
creature bumped into a rockslide. The roof had collapsed, leaving a cavity of solid stone, and time and
heat and pressure had sealed the whole tight. The monster screamed, wailed, pounded with blocky fists
that cracked boulders. Yet it could never dig free, never escape this way.
Turning, the monster retraced it steps. Its rage still burned white-hot when it reached the dead
hydra. Screaming anew, the monster kicked the carcass so chunks of black flesh rebounded from the
walls. Tearing with stone claws, it ripped more hunks loose, bit through them, slammed them down,
hurled them away. It raged and ranted and revelled in gore until the hydra was nothing but a black
smear studded with teeth and gristle.
Only then did the black-spattered monster continue on, like some misshapen parody of a man or
woman smeared with offal. As its great heavy feet scratched along, it muttered anew.
". . . Not the way out. There must be. Must get out. Revenge . .. that's all. Death to everyone I hate.
"But first, must get out..."
*****
Onward they trekked. Winter waned as Sunbright and Knucklebones searched from the Channel
Mountains in the east, north past the fork at Two Rivers, then westward along the edge of the High
Ice, where even polar bears didn't go. Nothing did they find.
Sunbright patiently explained that his people always followed this route, for as the snow retreated,
the reindeer came after, cropping the soft moss of the tundra, until the herd reached the High Ice and
turned westward. Yet there was no evidence of any tribe. Disturbingly, Sunbright noted the reindeer
herd was thinner, the animals gaunt. The moss was thin, and the tiny purple blossoms he remembered
from his youth were sparse.