"Terry Goodkind - Sword of Truth 1 - Wizard's First Rule" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goodkind Terry)

One of the pods struck out and hit the back of his left hand, causing him to
jump back in pain and surprise. Inspecting the small wound, he found something
like a thorn embedded in the meat of the gash. The matter was decided. The
vine was trouble. He reached for his knife to dig out the thorn, but the knife
wasn't there. At first surprised, he realized why and reprimanded himself for
allowing his depression to cause him to forget something as basic as taking
his knife with him into the woods. Using his fingernails, he tried to pull out
the thorn. To his rising concern, the thorn, as if alive, wriggled itself in
deeper. He dragged his thumbnail across the wound, trying to snag the thorn
out. The more he dug, the deeper it went. A hot wave of nausea swept through
him as he tore at the wound, making it bigger, so he stopped. The thorn had
disappeared into the oozing blood.
Looking about, Richard spotted the purplish red autumn leaves of a small
nannyberry tree, laden with its crop of dark blue berries. Beneath the tree,
nestled in the crook of a root, he found what he sought: an aum plant.
Relieved, he carefully snapped off the tender stem near its base, and gently
squeezed the sticky, clear liquid onto the bite. He smiled as he mentally
thanked old Zedd for teaching him how the aum plant made wounds heal faster.
The soft fuzzy leaves always made Richard think of Zedd. The juice of the aum
numbed the sting, but not his worry over being unable to remove the thorn. He
could feel it wriggling still deeper into his flesh.

Richard squatted down and poked a hole in the ground with his finger, placed
the aum in it, and fixed moss about the stem so it might regrow itself.

The sounds of the forest fell dead still. Richard looked up, flinching as a
dark shadow swept over the ground, leaping across limbs and leaves. There was
a rushing, whistling sound in the air overhead. The size of the shadow was
frightening. Birds burst from cover in the trees, giving alarm calls as they
scattered in all directions. Richard peered up, searching through the gaps in
the canopy of green and gold, trying to see the shadow's source. For an
instant, he saw something big. Big, and red. He couldn't imagine what it could
be, but the memory of the rumors and stories of things coming out of the
boundary flooded back into his mind, making him go cold to the bone.

The vine was trouble, he thought again; this thing in the sky could be no
less. He remembered what people always said, "Trouble sires three children,"
and knew immediately that he didn't want to meet the third child.

Discounting his fears, he started running. Just idle talk of superstitious
people, he told himself. He tried to think of what could be that big, that big
and red. It was impossible; there was nothing that flew that was that large.
Maybe it was a cloud, or a trick of the light. But he couldn't fool himself:
it was no cloud.

Looking up as he ran, trying for another glimpse, he headed for the path that
skirted the hillside. Richard knew that the ground dropped off sharply on the
other side of the trail, and he would be able to get an unobstructed view of
the sky. Tree branches wet with rain from the night before slapped at his face