"Tara K. Harper - Wolfwalker 2 - Shadow Leader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harper Tara K)

power in the strong chin and slate-gray eyes that would make
any woman look twice. She slipped through the branches of
another deadfall and looked back, gauging the movement that
chased them down the path. Vines as thick as her forearm?
Moonworms.
The sway of the upper branches in the breeze added soft
sounds to the rustling that grew behind them, and the tiny
sounds of the low twigs that brushed against the ground in the
same wind tightened the muscles across Dion's back. Was it
masa or imagination that dropped the leafy arbor closer to their
heads? Aranur seemed to ignore the way the trees reached
down for their hair and clothes, but the wolf walker felt a chill.
The dark clumps of the deadfalls could hide anything. If the
grasses and weeds that choked the path harbored the masa's
feeder roots, she would never know. Even the tiny meadows
she and Aranur crossed were haunts that the sucker vines could
hide in. Hide and wait until the prey was too far from the safety
of shrubs to escape back into the woods.
The path is clear, the gray wolf insisted. Clear.
But Dion could not shake the feeling. Her nose was too full
of the sweet, rotten scent of the plant. And Aranur's sense of
smell was no better. He paused continuously, but only his eyes
and ears told him where the rustling followed; the smell of the
masa was too thick even when the breeze brought a cool touch
of water to the air.
Suddenly the wolf's hackles rose and Dion froze.
"Wait. . . " she breathed.
Aranur became motionless midstep.
Dion eased her knife from the sheath so that both of her
hands held blades. "It's here," she whispered. "Around us."
He nodded imperceptibly.
The wolf touched a cold nose to Dion's hip.
"Ahead, and to the left."
He eased his step to the ground, raising his sword slightly.
The sound was too loud to mistake.
He was several meters ahead of her now.
"AranurтАФ"
He did not look around. "Watch my back."
He eased forward half a step. Then another. The brush be-
came suddenly silent. ThenтАФ
"MoonwormsтАФ"
"Look out!" Dion shouted.
Hishn snarled, Dion jumped forward and hacked, and Ara-
nur lunged back while a sudden rain of vines clutched at his
body. He dodged left, between two evilly snaking runners. As
he threw himself back over a root, he landed with a thwumph
at the healer's feet. Dion scrambled out of his way, slashing at
the last thin growth that dragged at his ankle.
"Light of the moons . . . " Dion quickly flipped a thick vine
over a solid branch and cut across another's reaching tendril.