"Farland, David - Runelords 5 - Sons of the Oak (v1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farland David)

He grunted in surprise and quicker than drought his boot-knife leapt from scabbard to hand. He stared at me girl for a moment, and saw movement againЧa shifting in her belly.
"Is... is mere something in mere?" Waggit asked, his voice shaken.
And now mat Borenson thought about it, he realized that the girls were too bloated for such cold weather. They shouldn't have swelled so much in a pair of nights.
He saw it again, as if a child kicked inside the dead girl's womb.
"There are babies in there," Fallion said, his face a study in horror and amazement.
Leaning forward, Borenson plunged in his knife, penetratмing the skin, so mat the smaller girl's belly flayed open. Out spilled its contents.
Borenson saw several creaturesЧwet, slimy, squirming. Like black malformed pups that feed at their mother's teats.
One spilled out onto a limb, rolling to its back. Its eyes were lidless, like a snake's, and vast and soulless in a wolflike face. Its tiny paws looked powerful, with claws as sharp as fishhooks. Its body looked too long for those legs, almost otterlike, with folds of skin that ran from leg to leg,

like a flying lizard. But the creature had black hair, and its mouth held far too many teeth.
"What in the world?" Waggit intoned with revulsion.
The girl's innards were mostly gone. Tripe, guts, liver. The monsters had been feeding on them.
"Eating their way out," Waggit said. He asked the others, "You ever heard of anything like this?"
"You're the scholar," Borenson shot back.
Both men looked to Daymorra for an answer. She was the one who had traveled most widely in the world. She just sat astride her horse, nocking an arrow to her great bow, and shook her head.
Suddenly, from the highest branch above them, there was movement. A pale face turned to them, and a small and frightened voice whispered, "Get away from here. Before they come back!"
A young woman with hair as red as cinnamon was staring down at themЧfierce eyes as blue as summer skies, the eyes of a savage. With her pale complexion, Borenson had just thought her to be another one of the dead. She looked to be twelve or thirteen, her small breasts just beginning to form. Her clothes were sodden rags, and her windblown hair had bits of leaves, lichens, and bark caught in it.
He stared in surprise. The girl's teeth were chattering. Strange, Borenson thought; I did not hear it before. She still clung to a scrap of cloth, a dark green coat. Her thighs were bruised and bloody, but her stomach was not yet bloated. Her rape must have been very recent.
Borenson glanced back at the others, to see their reaction, but the young woman begged, "Please, don't leave me!"
"We won't," young Fallion said, spurring his horse. In an instant, he was under the limb, reaching up.
The girl leaned forward, grabbing him around the neck. She felt shaky and frail as she half slid, half fell into the saddle behind him.
Fallion worried for her, hoping that there might be time to save her still. He wondered if it was safe to touch herЧif the creatures inside might eat their way out

Borenson threw his cape around her shoulders. Fallion felt her tremble all over as she hugged his chest. She clung to him as if she'd die before she let go.
"Do you have a name, child?" Borenson asked.
"Rhianna," the girl said. Her accent was one common to
folk in the far northwest of Mystarria. j
"A last name?" he asked. She made no answer. Fallion
turned to see her. Her blue eyes were filled with more terror
than he had ever seen in a human face. j
Fallion wondered what horrors she had seen. i
For her part, Rhianna stared at the men, and she was too afraid to speak. She could feel something hurting her inside. Was it fear that gnawed at her belly, or something worse? Why were these men still here? Everyone else was dead. She could tell them later what had happenedЧabout the dark stranger, the summoner. She forced some words past lips that would not let her speak. "Please, let's go. Get me out of here!"
In the woods above them there was a distant crack, like a
wet limb snapping under heavy weight. ,
"I smell evil," Daymorra whispered. "It's coming." i
Suddenly a voice inside Fallion warned, "Flee!" It was his father's voice, the warning of the Eartii King.
All the others must have heard the same warning, for Waggit instantly grabbed Jaz's reins and went thundering downhill through the woods.
Borenson fumbled with his boot-knife for an instant, thinking to put it away, but then stabbed the damned creature that lay on the limb through the belly, and it wriggled on the end of his blade. He marveled at its strength, until it let out a shrill bell-like bark.
And in the woods, uphill, an enormous roar sounded, shaking the air, a mother crying out to her young.
There was the sound of limbs snapping and trees breakмing, and Borenson looked back. Fallion was trying to turn his mount, mouth wide in horror. Borenson slapped its rump, and the horse lunged away uncertainly.
Rhianna wrapped her arms around Fallion. He locked his

own small hand over her fist and thought, We were all wrong. My father didn't send me here to see some old woman. He sent me to see this!
He glanced back into the woods, trying to discern what gave chase, as Borenson sheathed his knife.
Fallion's heart was pounding like a sledgehammer upon an anvil. His father seldom sent warnings, and only did so when a man was in mortal danger.
There was a sound like the churning of wind, or the rising of a storm up the hill, as if something were rushing through the trees. Fallion peered up through the woods, and it seemed that he saw movementЧdark forms leaping and gliding through the trees. But it was as if light retreated from them, and the harder he squinted, the less certain he could be of what it was that he saw.
"Ride!" Daymorra shouted as she drew back her arrow. "I will hold them off!"
Waggit and Jaz were already gone, leaving Daymorra to her fate. Borenson spurred his own horse and kept just off Fallion's flank. Soon the horses were galloping at full speed.
Fallion's training took over and he clung to the saddle and crouched, offering less wind resistance as an aid to his swift force horse and making a smaller target of his back. Rhianna clung to him, warming his back. With his ear pressed against the horse's neck, he could feel the heat of its body on his cheek as well as between his legs, could feel every thud of its hooves against the soft humus, and could hear the blood rushing through its veins and the wind wheezing through the caverns of its lungs.
He was suddenly reminded of an incident from his childмhood: on a foggy morning, not five years ago, he and Jaz had gone out on the parapet. The streets had been all but empty so early in the morning, and Fallion had heard a strange sound, a panting, as if someone were running, followed by a call: "WoooЧOOOO. Wooo-oooo."