"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 25 - Torian Pearls." - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

under him, sending him lurching forward. He went to his knees with a splash.

To Blade's strained hearing the splash seemed to roll across the water like an explosion. It was certainly
loud enough to reach the creature behind him. Blade heard a hissing roar as massive lungs took in air.
Then came the tremendous splashing of a huge body heaving itself forward through the water.
 Blade ran, charging through the last few yards of water in a few seconds, throwing up spray like a
motorboat. His feet came down on drying mud and then on damp grass. Behind him the creature gave
another hissing roar. Blade kept going. Even if it couldn't follow him onto the land, that long neck could
reach well up past the waterline.

A bush loomed in his path, and this time he did jump. He landed on a moss-grown log which rolled out
from under him, spilling him to the ground. A thick layer of dead leaves broke his fall.

As he rose the creature drove itself hard into the mud with a tremendous squelching splash. A miniature
tidal wave poured up onto the land, reaching halfway to where Blade stood. The creature roared in
surprise at finding itself aground, roared even louder at finding itself stuck fast in the mud, and began
thrashing around frantically. Its tail lashed the water into foam, and its head struck here, there, and
everywhere along the shore, its jaws snapping furiously.

Now that he could see it more clearly, Blade saw the creature had no legs, only flippers ending in long
bony spurs. No doubt they would do a good job rooting up the water plants or striking at rivals or
enemies, but they wouldn't take the creature a single inch on dry land.

Blade turned his back on the stranded creature and walked off inland. He rather hoped it would get itself
unstranded before too long. It hadn't really done anything to him, so he had no reason to wish it dead. He
also didn't want the creature's struggles to get afloat to attract unwelcome visitors, either animal or
human.

Apparently it succeeded. At any rate the roars and splashes died away by the time Blade was out of
sight of the water. Trees began to rise more and more thickly on either hand. Blade realized that he'd
climbed out onto a fairly substantial stretch of dry land, more than the crests of a few hills.

In that case it was time to stop for the night. He was tired, he was thirsty, and daylight was the time to
explore what lay ahead.

Blade picked a nearby tree and scrambled up to where two thick branches jutted out from the trunk.
Their bases formed a broad, solid platform. He could have slept more comfortably on the ground, but he
didn't want to take the risk if he didn't have to. Not all of the large and bad-tempered creatures in this
Dimension might be water-dwelling plant-eaters.

He shifted about, trying to find a position where his arms and legs didn't dangle and nothing dug painfully
into his skin. The tree was taller than most of its neighbors, and through gaps in the leaves Blade could
catch glimpses of the forest spreading away in all directions.

To the north and the west he saw beyond the forest the faint loom of more and higher hills. He saw hints
of jagged summits, a thin silvery plume of steam or smoke, and then something that made him stop and
look again.

In the shadows along the flank of one hill a small circle of orange light flickered. It was impossible to be
certain what it was or how far away it lay. It might be volcanic activity, but Blade had also seen circles of