"Alan F. Troop - Dragon DelaSangre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Troop Alan F)

The men constantly have to adjust their positions to cope with the pitching of their small craft.

I wonder at the wisdom of spending such a rough evening in such a puny craft for the dubious pleasure
of hooking a few fish by the mouth. But I'm glad they have. If theirs was a larger, more expensive boat, I
would have to bypass them. It's one of Father's rules. He has many when it comes to humans. "Never
take rich ones, if you can avoid it. Their absence never goes unnoticed. The poorer the prey, the
less likely the chance of retribution."

Intent as the two men are on their fishing and as loud as the wind and water are, I doubt they have any
sense of my proximity. One brings in a fish, rebaits his hook and casts again. Good, I think, they have the
look of men committed to a long night of fishing. I turn away and rush for home. When I return, it will be
a simple thing, both to take them and to upend their craft so they will look as if they were lost to the sea.

The island is a black presence silhouetted against a darker sea and sky. I maneuver the turns of the
channel at full speed, caroming from wave to wave, missing the sharp rocks below by inches. There are
no markers, no buoys to show the way. No matter. I know it as well as I know my name.

"Father!"I mindspeak. "Wake up! It's time for a hunt!"

I have to repeat myself four times before he answers. "And about time too," he says. "Will you bring
me a young one?"

"You know better than that," I say.
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I can sense his disappointment, even though I'm still hundreds of yards from shore. It's an old
disagreement. No matter how sweet they may be, I refuse to take children. Just like so many on the
mainland refuse to eat veal, I insist on my preferences.

Father snorts at the thought of it. "You are what you are," he says. "When will you accept that?"

"You didn't grow up with them. You didn't go to their schools."

"We only do what we must." Father sighs. "We're no different from the lions that roam the
Serengeti. We just happen to favor the taste of man."

"That doesn't mean I have to eat their young," I say.

"Don't forget. We were rulers of great kingdoms once, slayers of thousands," Father says, "Ours is
a history older than the age of magicтАФ"

I've heard this lecture all my life. I interrupt, and parrot back the words he's spoken to me so many times
before, "Had we slain a thousand times more of them, we still couldn't have stemmed the explosive
growth of humanity. And no matter how strong our power, no matter how long we lived, we were
never numerous enough."

"Quiet!" Father says. "Don't bother me anymore until you have something to bring me."