"Esther M. Friesner - Chicks 03 - Chicks 'N Chained Males" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

turned his back on considerable female attention when he chose to become a miser. So, when he realized
that the unfamiliar aroma wafting down the cold wet wind was another dragon, his first thought was "Of
course." A she-dragon had been attracted by his elegance, and hoped to make up to him.

Quickly, he shoved his treasure to the back of the cave, and piled rocks on it. No thieving, lustful
she-dragon was going to get his treasure, though he had to admit it was pleasant to find that the girls still
pursued him. He edged to the front of his cave and looked upwind, into the swirls of rain. ThereтАФwas
she there? OrтАФover there?
***

The women of the expedition set up camp with the swift, capable movements of those experienced in
such things. The tent blew over only once, and proved large enough for them all, plus Dumpling the pony,
over whose steaming coat Siobhan labored until she was as wet as it had been, and so were half their
blankets. Then she polished the horse brasses on Dumpling's harness; she had insisted that any horse
under her care would be properly adorned and she knew the others wouldn't bother. Meanwhile, the
others built a fire and cooked their usual hearty fare, under cover of the front flap.

They were all sitting relaxed around the fire, full of mutton stew and trail bread, sipping the contents of
the stoneware jug Sophora had brought, when they heard a shriek. It sounded like someone falling off a
very high cliff, and unhappy about it.

Scientific experimentation has shown that it is impossible to put on breastplate, gorget, helm, greaves,
armlets, and gauntlets in less than one minute, and thus some magical power must have aided the warrior
women, for they were all outside the tent, properly armored, armed, and ready for inspection when the
dragon fell out of the sky and squashed the tent flat.

"Dumpling!" cried Siobhan, and lunged for the tent as the pony squealed and a series of thumps
suggested that hind hooves were in use.
 "No, waitтАФ" Mirabel grabbed her. Siobhan, doughty warrior that she was, had one weakness: an
intemperate concern for the welfare of horseflesh. "You can hear he's alive."

"Ssss. . . ." A warm glow, as of live coals being revived, appeared in the gloom where the tent had been.
Dumpling squealed again. Something ripped, and hoofbeats receded into the distance. "Ahhh . . . sss . . ."

"A dragon fell on our tent," Mirabel said, with the supernatural calm of the truly sloshed. "And it's alive.
And we're out here in the darkтАФ"

Light flared out of the sky; when she looked up, there was a huge shape, like a dragon made all of fire. It
was about the color of a live scorpion, she thought wildly, as it grew larger and larger. . . .

"That one's bigger," Sophora said, in her sweet soprano. "At least it's not dark any more."

Mirabel had never noticed that dragons could direct their fire, in much the way that the watch
commander could direct the light of his candle lantern. Silver threads of falling rain . . . a widening cone of
light . . . and in the middle of it, their flattened tent held down by a lumpish dragon the color of drying
slime along the edge of a pond. Its eyesтАФpale, oyster-colored eyesтАФopened, and its gray-lipped mouth
gaped. Steam curled into the air.

"Is it a baby?" asked Siobhan. Then she, like the others, looked again at the expression in those eyes.
"No," she said, answering her own question. Even Siobhan, whose belief that animals were never vicious