"Tom Purdom-Dragon Drill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Purdom Tom)

penetrate its armor if they landed on a weak spot, but that would be a matter of luck.
Now, watching the creature stagger under a second hit from a cannon, von Wogenfer wondered if
anything that size could be clubbed to death. Could you really hammer at its sides the way you weakened
the walls of a fortress, shot by shot?
 The dragon crouched and leaped again. This time it swerved to von Wogenfer's right and slowly
gained altitude. It banked, like some monstrous hawk, and von Wogenfer heard Alsten gasp.
"It's going to swoop," Alsten murmured.
Von Wogenfer's stomach tightened. He had stood with his men as they watched enemy cannon being
trained on their ranks, but this was something else. An enormous mass was falling on them out of the sky,
in a long sweep that would carry it directly over the grenadiers stationed around the stake.
He threw back his head and bellowed a command in his native tongue -- a language he used for
almost no other purpose. "Grenadiers. Bajonette -- auf."
The grenadiers raised their muskets above their heads without dropping to one knee. The thin, high
shriek of the predator ripped at the air. Wings beat like thunder as the long, scaly body swept across the
grenadier company. Claws reached for the princess through the massed bayonets. Human screams
mingled with the noise of the monster. Some of the more enterprising grenadiers rose up on tiptoe and
tried to slash at the white underbelly flowing past their points.
The animal was already climbing when it cleared the edge of the formation. The officers in the
grenadier company were ordering their men to close ranks. The tall hats bobbed in a familiar pattern as
the grenadiers filled in the gaps and let the walking wounded make their way through the formation. The
dragon had been reaching for Costanze Adelaide but its claws had struck at some of the men massed
around the stake. Somewhere in that blue-coated crowd, a corpse was probably being trampled by feet
that were mechanically obeying orders.
Why would the thing want a human female? Did it need some special nutrient? Now its irrational
objective was just one more sign he was faced with something that existed outside the laws of nature.
The thing had already executed an arc that carried it far above the farmland in front of the formation. It
had gained so much height it looked as if it was roughly the size of a cow -- but who had ever seen a
cow equipped with wings? It pointed itself at the front of the formation and fell toward its quarry as if it
was sliding down an invisible ramp in the sky.
This time it ignored Costanze Adelaide and attacked the grenadiers themselves. Its great claws
reached through the upraised bayonets for the faces and bodies of the men holding them.
Its head was pointed directly at von Wogenfer as it swept across the formation. He was looking at it
eye to eye as its feet mangled the troops he had placed in its path. Half the cavalrymen on both sides of
him were leaning over their horses' heads and stroking their faces.
The long tube of the creature's body slid directly over von Wogenfer's head. The tips of its bloody,
dripping claws were just a sword length from the top of his hat. A terrible retching odor permeated the
air like a fog.
The corporal holding von Wogenfer's horse grabbed the bridle with both hands and opposed its
straining muscles with the full weight of his body. Von Wogenfer ignored the struggle taking place
beneath his thighs and concentrated on the scene he was supposed to be controlling.
Grenadiers were falling out of formation with their faces covered with blood. Fragments of blue coats
flapped over glimpses of shredded upper bodies. Sergeants were beating the survivors into formation
with their halberds. Behind him, the three lieutenants had drawn their swords and turned in their saddles
as they followed the dragon's flight.
"Sheathe your swords!" von Wogenfer bellowed. "Keep your eyes on me! I'll tell you where to look!"
He had chosen a small dip near the top of the hill as a parking place for the wounded. The sergeants
who had been chosen to deal with the casualties were shepherding the walking wounded up the slope.
The men who couldn't walk were being dragged along the ground by their belts -- if they still had belts.
The grenadier company had lost half a dozen men in the first strike, another thirty in the second. From
what he could see of the men left in the ranks, at least ten of the wounded were still standing in the