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

had his attention. I could hear him now, clanking, pounding the hard
path. He halted below me, and I dared look out. Teeth thudded into the
trees above me. And then I saw his eye, the one looking toward me, glow.
A lance of fire shot out, bright, hurting my eyes, searing the trees only
hands above my head. I tried to dig myself a hole.

Yes, I had his attention.

But he was not quite in the proper position.

I examined him. His tough skin, parts of which would be so wonderful
for making hardaxes and other tools, was bleeding. All old dragonsтАФand
all were oldтАФbled, their dark blood seeping through the tough skin to
redden and blotch. This, I felt, in spite of his supply of teeth, which
seemed to be endless, was a very old dragon, blood-spotted almost
everywhere except in his gleaming eyes.

I wanted him to move. I threw a branch, and a lance of fire caught it in
midair, and he moved, just as I wanted him to. Dragons, I decided, were
not too smart. He was directly below my pile of rocks, and I rolled quickly,
kicked the log, and it went bounding down the cliff, followed by a growing
rumble as my rock pile fell and, as I'd hoped, gathered force and went
sweeping down in a cloud of dust and a rumble like summer thunder. And
over it there was the creaking and clanking as the dragon tried to avoid
the oncoming mass. I watched, fascinated and praying to my gods, and
then the first stones were upon him, making hard sounds as they glanced
off his hard skin, and then the force of it hit him and I saw him tilt and I
heard the rattle of his teeth flying everywhere with his eyes flashing and
then he was going over and the rocks piled up on him, crushing him,
imprisoning even his huge strength under many, many manweights of
rock and dirt. All was silent. The echo of the roar of the landslide faded. I
waited. Then, heart in mouth, I began to make my way down the fresh dirt
and exposed stones of the cliff, and I lived, did not feel the blasting shock
of his teeth or the searing flame of his eyes.

He was almost completely covered. He was on his side, and even in his
extremity he tried to kill me, sending out his teeth, rattling them against
the stones which covered him, blasting and smoking the stones with the
force of his eyes. I waited and watched his death struggles, and it was half
the day before he ceased to try to burn his way out of the pile of rubble
with his eyes.

The rocks were hot to the touch, and I had to wait for them to cool.
Finally, in the early evening, I neared, coming up on his weak side, his
exposed belly. He spat one last burst of teeth and then was silent.

By nightfall, I had his belly exposed, being careful not to move the rocks
which kept his head from turning. His huge, flat, continuous feet were
moving slowly, grinding away at nothing. I was careful to avoid them.