"Marguerite Krause & Susan Sizemore - Children of the Rock 01 - Moons' Dreaming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Krause Marguerite)

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MOONS’ DREAMING
“Chelam, what are you waiting for?”
With a wild neigh of terror, a packhorse burst out of the brush a dozen yards above
Pirse and careened across the slope, nostrils flaring. Despite the wide blindfold carefully
secured to his halter the gelding was well aware of the nearby dragon, and his frantic,
plunging strides proved he had no intention of believing a single word of the
reassurances Chelam had bestowed on the decoy before sending him on his way.
The dragon forgot about the fight and swung its huge head in the direction of a good
meal. Pirse clambered to the top of the boulder. The dragon got its feet straightened
out and flipped its tail behind it, cracking branches off yet another tree. The horse
pushed desperately through a thicket of low vegetation, angling back up the hill as fast
as his legs would carry him. The dragon collected itself, muscles bunching under the
mottled hide, head questing forward on long neck, huge, pleated ears fluttering in the
hot afternoon air. Pirse waited.
In deadly silence the dragon launched itself forward, jaws gaping wide, the abrupt
burst of perfectly controlled speed all the more terrifying in comparison to its usual
clumsiness. Pirse, having seen the same phenomenon more times than he could
remember, was ready for the dragon’s move. More, he was counting on it. He timed his
leap to the dragon’s smooth rush, throwing one leg over the wide neck as it shot past
the boulder. With one gloved hand he grasped the rough scales, and with the other
thrust his sword high and true into the base of the dragon’s throat.
Gray-white fluid geysered out around the blade, soaking Pirse’s hand and arm and
splashing in a shining arc across the hillside as the dragon twisted and writhed. Pirse
hung on grimly, swinging halfway under the flailing neck to push his sword even deeper
into the monster’s flesh. The result was another gush of the unnatural lifeblood. The
dragon’s roar became a choking gurgle. Still moving uphill with the force of its initial
lunge, it staggered, its legs crumpling.
Pirse jerked his sword free and flung himself clear just before the dead dragon
crashed into the ground . . .




MOONS' DREAMING
 In a world under three moons, in the courts and villages of three kingdoms, the fates of
the Dreamers are at stake. Only Dreamers can bend the power of the gods and perform
the magic that holds chaos at bay. The Dreamers are always few in number, born of rare
unions between ruling Shapers and peasant Keepers. The Shapers no longer believe in
magic. The practical Keepers no longer see any need for it.
The Dreamers need to find Shapers and Keepers who will love each other, but love
between the rulers and the ruled is harder and harder to come by. While the Dreamers
battle against extinction with the help of only King Sene of Sitrine, the rest of the world is
plunged into power struggles and turmoil. The death of a princess sends another, Vray of
Rhenlan into exile, results in the murder of the queen of Dherrica, and plants the seeds of
revolution in Jordy the carter and Dael, captain of the royal guard of Rhenlan. If the world
no longer needs dreamers, they think, why do we need Shapers, either? If the world no