"Scott G. Gier - Genellan 02 - In the Shadow of the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gier Scott G)

menacingly forward.

Tatum drew his sights on the brute's great heart and pulled the trigger.
One round left the weapon, and then it jammed! The dragon leapt, seeming
to cover half the distance with its first explosive step, its banshee scream
warbling into a hissing gurgle.

"Oh shтАФ!" Tatum yelled, his voice eclipsed by the detonations of
O'Toole's rifle firing on full automatic.

Despite the torrent of heavy slugs, the dragon's momentum carried it
violently onward. The monster tumbled, pinwheeling rocks, grass, and dust
into the air. It slid to a halt at their feet, tail thumping, jaws snapping like
banging bricks. Tatum, falling backward, tossed his rifle aside and blasted
away with his pistol. O'Toole retreated, pumping another clip into the reptile
before it finally died.

It smelled of mildew and hot blood. Tatum rose slowly from his
defensive crouch, reloaded his pistol, and retrieved his jammed weapon,
maintaining a prudent distance from the downed predator. He glanced at
the dead horse and exhaled fatalistically. The rest of the herd had
disappeared into the trees.

"Let's go find our horses," he said, spitting at the bullet-riddled carcass.

"What the hell are superdragons doing on this side of the river and this
far north?" O'Toole puffed.

"Eating horses." Tatum snarled.

"But big ones never come this far north. WeтАФ"

A hunter screamed in warning, and then another. Urgent. Frightened!

"Oh, shit," Tatum groaned. Far up the ridgeline, in golden sunlight,
another pair of gray monsters scuttled across the mountain meadow, snouts
in the air. And then two more breasted the ridge, closer, hardly a hundred
meters away. The reptiles were headed for the trees and for the valleyтАФand
the settlement.

"Another one!" O'Toole shouted, pointing. Far down the ridge, to the
north, a solitary killer pounded across a saddle of rock.

"Let's move," Tatum yelled, turning.

A different noise lifted into the calm morning air, a distant, baleful howl.
Again, closer! The skin on the back of Tatum's neck crawled. A hot knife
stabbed at his left shoulder, where once there had been another powerful
arm.