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

She heard the flat twang of a bowstring, and an arrow burieditself in her flank. She screamed,
feeling the hot gush of blooddown her leg and the weight of the shaft throwing off her
balance.The pain was another weight, sucking the fight from her. She stareddown; one of them
tracked her through the trees, waiting foranother clear shot. She flung herself forward, and heard
another ofthem crashing toward her from the side. The ones behind her wereclosing.

Hurry with the fire, Hasmal, she prayed. If he did, her friendswould survive; they would find a
way to get the Mirror to theReborn even if she died. They had to succeed at that —Solander the
Reborn had told her he had to have it. The Mirror,which was rumored to resurrect the dead,
would one day give herback her murdered Family, but even before it did that, it wouldserve
Solander’s purpose in creating his world of peace andlove — the world in which her kind would
be accepted, nothunted down, tortured, and slaughtered.

She never thought she’d discover something worth dying for,but a world that would not murder
little children for being bornScarred was such a thing. Her family’s lives were such athing. If her
friends could live to get the Mirror to Solander. . .

She yanked the arrow from her flank with teeth and claws, and,fighting the agony, went
scrambling on three legs along the branch.The Karnee Shift began closing the wound, but ate up
her energy todo it. Her body would devour itself to heal; if she lived throughthis, she would have
a hellish price to pay.

Then she heard fire crackling behind her and caught the firstwhiff of smoke. The spellfire
wouldn’t be stopped by rain, orby live, wet wood, or by unfavorable wind. It would burn
everythingburnable in its path, carving a perfect circle of destructionthrough the forest, stopping
only when the energy with which Hasmalhad fueled it ran out. It would burn faster than any
normal fire,reducing a full-grown tree to ashes in mere moments. If shedidn’t get out of its way,
it would burn her, too.
The stream ran below her, within reach. But the monsters heldthe game trails to either side of it.
If she wanted to live, shehad to get to the bay. She was out of time.

The monsters sniffed the air, smelling smoke — but theydidn’t know how fast the fire would
come. She did. Indesperation she threw herself into the center of the flooded, icy,boulder-studded
stream. The water dragged at her legs as shescrabbled to touch bottom, lifted her off her feet, and
flung herforward.

She fought to keep her head up. The current was fast, brutallyfast, the normally negotiable water
made deadly by days of rain. Itslammed her into boulders as it dragged her downstream. With
everybone-cracking collision she could only remind herself that worsewas coming.

The current spun her backward for an instant before sucking hercompletely under the water. In
that instant, she saw the worldbehind her lit up like a blast furnace, blue-white fire advancingin a
wall faster than the fastest man could run.

She’d seen the monsters behind her outlined by thefire.

And then she was under the muddy water, caught in the fiercecenter of the current, dragged
headfirst through blackness. Sheheld her breath and kept her forelegs over her head, hoping
toprotect herself from rocks, but the current jerked her into onefrom the side, and when her head