"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

missed the freedom to take whatever shape she pleased. But most of all,
Alara missed the Thunder Dances, when all the dragons called in a lightning
storm and flew among the clouds at the height of it.

Dragons sometimes died in a Thunder Dance, dashed to the ground by a
sudden, unexpected down-draft. Or met with disaster as wingbones broke or
membranes tore, leaving them to flail helplessly, falling to their deaths.
Occasionally one of their fellow dancers would notice the plight, or hear the
mental screams for help, and wing in to the doomed one's side in time to save
him, but that didn't happen too often.

But the risk was part of the attraction after all.

Alara thought back to her last Thunder Dance with a longing so intense she
would have shivered in any other form, and a deep and abiding hunger. And
she bad been the FireRunner, the position of most honor and most danger--

Rising and falling, the plaything of the winds, steering through them by
yielding to them--

That showed mastery of the air, more than any gymnastics in gentle thermals
ever could.
Calling the lightning to herself as it leapt from cloud to cloud, letting it run
over her skin and arc up into the thunderheads above, every scale, every
spine outlined in white fire--

And a single momentary lapse of concentration would let the lightning flow
through her instead of over her impervious skin, paralyzing her or even
killing her.

Casting lightnings of her own, from wingtip to wingtip, or from wingtip to
cloud--

Most dragons could arc while on the ground; only the ones with skill hard-
won from years of practice could arc and fly. That Alara could even arc to
another point was a measure other skill, skill that had won her a most
desirable mate after the last Dance.

If she had possessed lips, she would have licked them at the memory of
Reolaha№, shaman of Wav№na's Lair. Long, lithe, lean--in color a dusky gold
beneath the rainbow iridescence of his scales--a mind as swift as the
lightning and a wit as sharp as his claws; in short, he was a combination
Alara found irresistible. He was the FireRunner now, for both their Lairs,
until the little one was born and she could resume her full duties. Double
duty--twice the danger, for Running in so many Thunder Dances, but twice
the thrill as well. And, unless circumstances threw them together again, it
was unlikely they would meet except at Dances, much less become
permanent mates. Neither his Lair nor hers would be willing to do without
their shaman. The duties of the shaman were too time-consuming for either
of them to make the three-day flight between the two Lairs very often. She