"Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Deathgate Cycle 7 - The Seventh Gate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

"There were lots of dragons fighting," Hugh protested.

"But the Labyrinth dragons are red-scaled. Not green. No, this has to be Alfred."

"Whatever you say, lady. I don't believe it myself. A man changing himself into a dragon!" He
snorted.

"The same man who brought you back from the dead," Marit said crisply. "Let's go."

The trail of bloodтАФpitiably easy to followтАФled into the forest. Marit found glimmering drops on
the grass and splattered on the leaves of the trees. Occasionally she and Hugh were forced to make
a detour around some impassable tangle of bramble bushes or thick undergrowth, but they could
always pick the trail up easily; too easily. The dragon had lost a lot of blood.

"If the dragon was Alfred, he was flying away from the city," Hugh the Hand observed, crawling
over a fallen log. "I wonder why? If he was hurt this badly, you'd think he would have come back
to the city for help."

"In the Labyrinth, a mother will often run away from safety to lure the enemy from her child. I
think that's what Alfred was doing. That's why he didn't fly toward the city. He was being pursued
and so he deliberately led his enemy away from us. Careful. Don't go near that!"

Marit caught hold of Hugh, stopped him from stepping into an innocent-looking tangle of green
leaves. "That's a choke vine. It'll tighten around your ankle, cut right through the bone. You won't
have a foot left."

"Nice place you've got here, lady," Hugh muttered, falling back. "The damn weed is all over!
There's no way around it."
"We'll have to climb." Marit pulled herself up into a tree, began crawling from branch to branch.

Hugh the Hand followed more clumsily and more slowly, his dangling feet barely clearing the
choke vine. Its green leaves and tiny white blossoms stirred and rustled beneath him.

Marit pointed grimly to streaks of blood running down the tree trunk. Hugh grunted, said nothing.

Across the vine-patch, Marit slid back down to the ground. She scratched at her skin. The sigla had
begun to itch and glow faintly, warning her of danger. Apparently, not all their enemies had rushed
to do battle at the Final Gate. She pushed forward with greater urgency, greater caution.

Emerging from a dense thicket, she stepped suddenly and unexpectedly into a cleared space.

"Would you look at this!" Hugh the Hand gave a low whistle.

Marit stared, amazed.

A wide swath of destruction had been cut into the forest. Small trees lay broken on the ground.
Their limbs, snapped and twisted, hung from scarred trunks.
The undergrowth had been flattened into the mud. The ground was littered with twigs and leaves.
Green and golden scales were scattered around, sparkling like jewels in the gray dawn.