"Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 2 - Vengeance Of Dragons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

read murder in his face.Another Scarred had turned, too, and nocked an arrow. She spun,darted
from the cleared circle, and burst out at one of the twomonsters still firing at the cornered
humans. An arrow grazed herback and fire screamed through her body, but she kept going.

She launched herself upward at the creature’s underbelly,her claws unsheathed and hooking
forward, teeth bared. She rippedinto the unprotected skin and the slippery, stinking weight of
gutrolled down at her. The beast shrieked, its voice far toohigh-pitched for its size, and flailed at
her. Her momentum carriedher out of its reach, but into the path of the other twomonsters.

One released an arrow in her direction; the other reached forher with dirt-crusted claws as long as
her hands. The reachingmonster hampered the aim of the shooting one, and the shooting
onescreamed at the grabbing one and startled him, and so both missed.She scrambled away
before they could organize their attack, and ranout into the rain of shale.

“Don’t hit me!” she yelled, and caught just aglimpse of the pale faces of her friends peering from
theprotection of the crevice. “I’m going to lead them awayfrom camp. Hasmal — set a . . .
aspellfire.”

She heard them shout, “Kait!” Someone yelled,“Right!” and she hoped Hasmal had understood
whatshe’d said. Her Shifted voice was deep and coarse, more thegrowling of an animal than the
speech of a woman. Godsall, shehoped he could figure out what she planned, and that he would
dowhat she wanted him to do.

The monster she’d disemboweled was down. But the otherswere after her, their long legs
covering a hellish amount ofground.

She charged straight for the stream that fed into the bay andleaped it. On the other side, a game
trail ran parallel to thewater. Kait followed it; browsing animals had cleared much of thestream
edge, so for something her size, it made easy running. Thebeasts that pursued her, much larger
than she, struggled withbranches and thickets overhanging the trail at eye level. She couldhear
them crashing after her, falling behind. They started howling,and she could hear the frustration in
their calls.

She would make it. She was going to survive. She’d havetime to get down to the beach, to swim
into the bay —
Another monster appeared in front of her — another part oftheir hunting band, coming to assist
its packmates. She shrieked,caught off guard, but it wasn’t surprised to see her. Itnarrowed its
eyes and lunged.

She barely evaded it; she was small and fast, it was large andslower. But not slow enough. It
jumped sideways to block herescape, yelling as it did. From behind her, one of the othersshouted
back.

They talked to each other. It was too easy to think of them asanimals, but they weren’t.

She shot straight up a solid tree, claws hooking into the bark.The monster stretched after her, its
claws slashing into herhaunch, and she felt a single instant of blinding pain along herspine. She
dug harder with her hindquarters and pulled free. Sheclung to an upper branch, out of reach of the
things, wishing forthe safety of the bay. She was running out of time. She began thecareful
process of moving across the network of interfaced branchesthat would get her there.