"Emil Petaja - The Prism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Petaja Emil)

transitory. First death came as a far-off bellow trumpeting in counterpoint
across the skirling wind. Hearing that bellow stopped him cold. He waited,
frozen. Then he saw it; it was monstrous, the largest dragon he had ever
seen in his life. Scaled, low-bellied, it moved on him in rapid scuttled darts
of its webbed black hindfeet. When the wind drove the fog-curtain aside in
a vagary Kor saw it full. On that tapering neck the red dragon's head
surveyed him, savoring him with glowing eyes and slavering jaws, while its
half-webbed foreclaws made coy preliminary snatches in his direction.


II
тАЬAn ancient dragon! How dull!тАЭ
тАЬThe base-colors love them. We keep them right out of the old legendry.
One must have a dragon guarding a castle.тАЭ
тАЬI suppose one must. Our oaf is persistent and stubborn about refusing
to die. I do hope he will show us the least bit of consideration and allow
himself to be eaten at this point.тАЭ
тАЬWould that amuse you, Sena?тАЭ
тАЬOh, yes! I love it when they finally get mangled and devoured!тАЭ
Kor snapped his head vigorously to shake off the buzzing voices; he
gripped out his sword. The beast before him goggled and weaved its
razor-toothed head, burbling anticipatory delight deep in its throat. It
swished its broad fork-tipped tail as it contemplated such an unexpected
morsel. With a trumpeting roar it came on full-charge.
The blast of its hot breath hurled Kor back toward the cliffline; his blade
tore across the low-slung triangle of belly and made the dragon roar louder,
and add a rageful scream of pain for a fillip ending. Kor's backleap tumbled
him across a knoll and with a deft dip upward the dragon had him in its
jaws.
тАЬHappy, Sena?тАЭ
тАЬEcstatic!тАЭ
Kor screamed from blind pain, then his great body lopped and swung
limply back and forth as the dragon turned ponderously and moved back
toward some lair where he might relish and truly enjoy his unexpected
feast. When the pressure of the cutting cuspids relaxed slightly, Kor gave a
desperate lunge upтАФhe drove his blade as hard as he could right into the
roof of the great beast's mouth. The dragon's wide scream opened his
mouth and that was what Kor was after. He dropped in a roll, heavily, on
the thick blue grass. He bled in a dozen places. Life was a tangle of pain,
but he must not fail Princess Sena now. He dropped flat and scuttled back
between the beast's stumpy legs.
He ran.
He ran.
Blindly into the fog, anywhere away from those ravening jaws and away
from the cliff. He ran in panic until the dragon's ragings were only an echo
on the driving wind; then, only then, did he fling himself down on the
ground and pull ragged breath into his starved lungs.

***