"Zach Hughes - Killbird" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

hardness by the eternity of their vigilance, for dragons were God's first
creations, were on earth before God made man from the fresh, red bones
of a bear and made him walk upright, as the bear does on occasion.

What else did I know? The range of the dragon's teeth is limited, and
the teeth cannot penetrate rock or a huge tree. The dragon's eyes are
deadly at closer range, but can kill only in line of sight, being deflected by
trees, stone or, one old man claimed, by a stout shield of animal hide.
Dragons protect. What? Only God knows, but it was said that originally
the intention was to keep man from leaving the mountains to enter the
deadly flats.

So. I was not exactly an authority on dragons, and down there, hidden
by the trees, I had me a dragon.
 The lion had attracted the dragon's attention, and the sounds I'd heard
had been the dragon moving to a point directly below me. I thought about
that. It seemed to me that it would be best to get out of there and make a
new approach. I began to crawl up the hill, keeping very, very low. In an
open area the ground around me suddenly spurted dust and there were
deadly snaps in the air. I leaped for a rock, and the teeth crashed against
it. Then with one leap I was among the trees, and the teeth thudded
harmlessly into the tree trunks.

I made another approach. I went far to the north and came down.
There were no bones of death there. The range of my dragon seemed to be
limited. I had a bad moment when I saw, overgrown and ruined,
something I'd never seen, a dragon's path, dark and eerie, cut by eons of
vigilance into the hillside, flat, wide. I hid and waited. Nothing happened.
I moved to a vantage point. To the south along the dragon's path there
was a huge rock slide, closing off the path. So, I reasoned, the dragon's
northward patrol was ended by the slide. I crept toward it, climbed the
chaos of the rocks, peered over. The dragon's path continued, and, oh,
gods of man, he was there, to the south an arrow's flight, squat, ancient,
awesome. His round head in the middle of his squat body was motionless,
but even at that distance I could see the gleam of his fearsome eyes. I held
my breath, ready to leap down the rock slide if he saw me and came after
me.

The path was in better shape on the far side of the rock slide, hard and
shiny, with only a few small trees and weeds growing in it. The tracks of
the dragon were in the center, and it was well beaten. The path had been
cut into the side of solid rock so that a cliff towered above it, ending in a
slope of rock topped by the forest. I heard a scream, and the dragon's head
turned slowly, the eerie wail creaking into my ears, and then the rumble as
he turned and slowly, feet pounding and clanking, came toward me. I
lowered myself, peering out between two rocks. He halted halfway to me
and went to sleep. There was silence.

I studied the land. Below the dragon's path the slope fell away into a
deep ravine, from which I could hear the sound of a stream. Among the