"Douglas Niles - Druidhome 2 - The Coral Kingdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niles Douglas)

been burrowing after survivors with its tentacles, and lumbered toward the froth-flecked horses and their
determined riders.
"Break!" shouted Brigit, veering to the right. Colleen, anticipating the command, split to the left. The
horses swept around the looming beast, out of range of the awful tendrils, and the monster seemed content
to let them pass.
As they came around to the other side, Brigit looked back and, for the first time, saw the distended gap
that was the thing's mouth. Blood flowed copiously among a grinding nest of tongue protuberances,
hard-edged digits that crunched and scraped against each other or against anything else unfortunate enough
to be caught between them. The knight gagged at the thought of the elvesтАФher fellow Llewyrr!тАФwho had
perished there, ground to pieces by the churning cartilage.
"Turn back!" she shouted to Colleen, veering sharply toward the creature. A tentacle lashed toward her
and she chopped, feeling a grim satisfaction when her steel blade bit into the gruesome flesh. Immediately
the limb whipped backward, away from the keen sword.
Colleen darted in on the other side, slashing at a different tentacle, and then the two riders galloped
away, pausing across the field to see if the thing would pursue them.
Instead, it stood like a small hillock, as if it would never move anywhere again. "Attack againтАФbut be
careful!" Brigit commanded.
Again the two Llewyrr thundered forward, blades at the ready, guiding the sleek horses with the
pressure of their knees. Still the three-legged monstrosity remained unmoving, awaiting the charge.
"Break!" cried Brigit again, and once more the two riders swept past the monster. The captain looked
for the lashing tentacles again, ready to parry, but no attack came. She darted closer, stabbing with her
blade toward the immense body.
But the beast sprang away before she could close. For a fierce, triumphant moment, she thought that it
feared her, but then she saw the awful truth.
The monster's leap carried it full into the side of Colleen's gelding. One of the huge legs kicked outward,
shockingly nimble, crushing the horse's shoulder with the force of a single blow. With an exclamation of
fear, or maybe anger, the scout flew from the saddle, tumbling heavily to the ground. Immediately a lashing
tendril whipped over her tumbling body to constrict about her legs. The knight finally stopped rolling,
knocked senseless, and the monster tightened its grip.
Slowly the tentacle grew taut, dragging Colleen feetfirst through the grass toward the gigantic beast.
The gaping maw narrowed, becoming an extending proboscis with a small, circular opening in its blunt tip.
The aperture resembled a giant sucker as it pulsed open and closed, as if tantalized by the approaching
morsel.
Brigit had rushed in closer when the monster attacked Colleen, but her bladeтАФof the sharpest, hardest
elven steel, and enchanted more than a thousand years earlier by a great Llewyrr wizardтАФmerely bounced
from the thing's bony carapace. Talloth fairly flew around the thing, and then Brigit saw the awful doom her
comrade faced.
Colleen regained her senses, but the monster ignored her desperate kicks. She grasped despairingly at
the grass, but it tore loose in her hands. The moist sucker that was the beast's mouth reached closer, almost
touching her leather boot.
The captain of the sister knights sprang from her saddle, landed on her feet between the scout and the
creature's mouth, and drove her longsword downward with killing force. The razor-sharp edge bit into the
tentacle, scoring a deep groove but failing to sever the tough limb.
Still, the wound distracted the monster enough for Colleen to kick against the tendril and squirm free.
Brigit jumped backward, grasping her companion's shoulder and jerking the trembling scout roughly to her
feet.
"Onto my mare! Quickly!" she barked as the faithful Talloth circled back to the two Llewyrr. The elves
stumbled away from the looming horror, not daring to look backward. Colleen steadied herself and reached
for the mare's bridle as the steed galloped closer. Suddenly the animal's eyes widened in fright and it reared
back.