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

I kept remembering little things. "The dragon's belly is his weakest
part," my father had told me.

And so it was.

Still, breaching that belly took the better part of two days, during which
I nearly ruined my hardax, put bruises and cuts on my hands, sweated,
cursed, tugged, banged away with large stones. I was attacking a plate on
the dragon's skin much like the plate on a turtle's belly, and his bones were
hard and tough. When at last I had one edge of the plate lifted slightly, I
was able to force a branch into the rift to use as a lever. With all my
strength I heaved, and one by one the bones gave and then the plate
clanged off to ring against the stones and the hard pathway.

Inside were wondrous things. Huge, horned arteries, which I attacked
with my poor, mutilated hardax. When I cut through one of them the
dragon spat fire at me and the feet stopped grinding away.

I cut more arteries and small veins and began to gather them, the small
veins, because they were indestructible and invaluable for tying things
together, for fishing lines, for decoration, since they came in various
colors. Soon I had a pile of treasures and was busily cutting my way
deeper and deeper into the dragon's entrails. I cut a different kind of
artery, and ichor or something similar jetted out. I got some of it on my
hands and expected it to burn, but it was cool and slick. I tried to wipe it
away. It was oily, like the extract of fat swimmer meat. I wished for
something to catch it in, but I had nothing. It would have been invaluable
for oiling skulls, for those who were lucky enough not to be cursed.
 But the true treasures were still beyond my reach after three days of
hard and frustrating labor, and it was not until the fourth day that I found
what I sought. I had cut and ripped my way into the entrails of the now
thoroughly dead beast, and there were wonders. A store of teeth, long,
hard, shiny. I took several, although they were heavy. And then the guts,
the gaudy little pretties. They were in several boxlike compartments, all
connected in a wondrous way, but the veins connecting them were small
and flexible and it was the work of mere hours to collect enough to make a
dozen necklaces. They came in various sizes, and different colors, with the
little veins sticking out both ends, and I bent the veins together to form a
huge multistrand necklace and stood atop the dead dragon, the token of
my victory around my neck, sweating, bleeding from accidental contact
with sharp points of dragon's skin, and sang my victory song.

I had only two more chores before going home in triumph. I searched
the dragon for a suitable piece of skin to replace my mutilated hardax. I
found a small plate and used up the remaining edge of my old hardax to
cut the bones holding it. Honed and ground and shaped, it would make a
beautiful hardax. Then I bundled all the treasure I could carry into my
sleepskin and rolled rocks to hide the carcass of the dragon. There was
much treasure left. I would return, with all of the men of the family, and
strip the carcass, making the family of Strabo of the Strongarm the richest