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

Tendrils of fog rose to meet them. Tatum, pistol in hand and worthless
rifle slung across his back, jogged into the cottony mist. Yellow-barked
spruce, tops disappearing in wet gauze, danced by like ghosts. Too quiet;
Tatum's ears strained for clues. Where were the damn nightmares?

Over his thudding heart and heaving lungs Tatum heard a horse
screaming in panic, just ahead, close. Tatum stopped abruptly and listened.
O'Toole, gasping, ran up his back.

"This way," Tatum wheezed, leaving the blazed trail for a tenuous game
path. "The horses followed the pasture trail."
 "And theтАж dragons followed the horses," O'Toole coughed.

"How'sтАж ammo?" Tatum asked, sweeping through a thicket of
rockberry. They were almost to the pine glades, where the undergrowth and
the cover would lessen markedly.

"One clip," O'Toole wheezed. "How about you?"

"Two," Tatum gasped. "HereтАж take them. They won't do me any good
until I get this pecker unjammed. Nine shots in the pistolтАж that's it."

"Let me take a lookтАФ"

"Shhhh!" Tatum dropped to his knees. The ground shook.

The wretched horse screamed again, horribly. A grinding crash, and the
horse mercifully gurgled to silence. Suddenly, much closer, something huge,
going very fast, pounded invisibly down the trail, mere meters away. The
silence in its wake was dizzying.

"Geez!" O'Toole recoiled, the whites of his eyes huge. "WhaтАФ"

Tatum almost backhanded O'Toole in the mouth with his pistol, pulling
the other marine down. They hunkered on their thighs, a fallen tree
providing meager shelter. Something moved. Something was still there, big
and hulking, a gray miasma in a slate cloud. Tatum could smell itтАФa
hissing, breathing presence, indistinct in the pervasive gloom. Tatum knew
the female was there, penetrating the mists with her cruel eyes, trying to
sniff out his scent in the cloying moisture.

He raised his pistol, waiting for the overwhelming charge. Blood
throbbed in his veins. Perspiration ran cold under his armpit. A shadow
exhaled, stirring the fog. Farther to the right than he had thought, still above
them on the pasture trail. A shape moved so slowly as not to be seen, but it
moved. Toward them! The stationary bole of a tree provided grim reference.
He aimed at the shadow and put tension on the trigger.

Bedlam erupted. Downhill. A dragon screamed and screamed again. The
prowling shadow jerked, its predatory form defined by rapid movement.