"Lisa Smedman - War of the Spider Queen 04 - Extinction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smedman Lisa)

Extinction
Book 4 of War of the Spider Queen series
A Forgotten Realms novel
By Lisa Smedman
Proofed by BW-SciFi
Ebook version 1.0
Release date: August, 15 th, 2004
 Chapter One
Pharaun lay on the forest floor, staring up into the angry eyes of five hissing serpents. Their fangs bared
and dripping with poison, their mouths open wide, the red-and-black-banded vipers strained against the whip
handle from which they grew.
The woman holding the whip stared down at Pharaun with tight-ly contained rage. Taller and stronger
than the Master of Sorcere, she was an imposing figure. Pharaun could not see her face—the bright light
streaming down from the sky above flooded his vision, turning her into a dark silhouette with bone-white
hair—but her tone was as venomous as her serpents' hisses.
"You stepped on that spider on purpose," Quenthel said.
"I did not," he spat back, wincing at the slush that was soak-ing through his elegant shirt, chilling his
back. He was glad the other members of their group had scattered in different direc-tions to search—that
they weren't there to observe him in such an undignified pose. "I can't see a gods-cursed thing in this
wretched light. Would I have let my trousers get into such a state if I could see well enough to step around
the brambles that tore them? If there was a spider on the path, I didn't know it was there."
He glanced to his left, at the spot Quenthel had indicated a mo-ment before. As she looked in that
direction, he slid his right hand out from behind his back.
One of the whip-serpents hissed a warning to its mistress, but too late. The moment Pharaun's hand was
clear, he spoke the word that awoke the magic in his ring. Instantly, the steel band around his finger
unfurled, elongating and expanding into a sword. Quick as thought, it spun in mid-air, slashing at the
serpents.
The vipers recoiled, narrowly escaping the scything blade. Quen-thel leaped back, her mail tunic
clinking. Pharaun scrambled to his feet and pressed her with the sword.
"Jeggred!" Quenthel screamed, her piwafwi whirling out behind her as she dodged the dancing sword.
"Defend me!"
Pharaun whipped a hand into a pocket of his own piwafwi and pulled out a pinch of powdered diamond.
Flicking the sparkling pow-der into the air, he shouted the words of a spell, at the same time whirl-ing in a
tight circle to scatter the powder. A dome of force sprang up all around him, shimmering like an inverted
bowl.
And not a heartbeat too soon. An instant after the magical dome had materialized, a vaguely
drow-shaped form hurtled out of the forest. The draegloth leaped onto the dome, the claws on his oversized
fighting hands screeching like the shrieks of the damned as they scrabbled for a hold on the diamond-hard
surface. The half-demon jumped again and again onto the dome, sliding off.
At last giving up, the draegloth crouched just outside the magical barrier, his smaller set of hands balled
into fists on the ground while his larger hands flexed claws in frustration. He glared with blood-red eyes at
Pharaun, then jerked his chin in defiance, sending a ripple through the coarse mane of yellow-white hair that
cloaked his shoulders.
Pharaun winced at the stench of the draegloth's breath, wishing the magical barrier was capable of
blocking odors.
Behind Jeggred, Quenthel kept a wary eye on the sword that hovered just over her head, shielding
herself from it with the buckler strapped to her arm. The serpents of her whip hissed at it, one of them
straining upward in a futile effort to snap at the weapon. Quenthel started to reach for the tube at her hip
that held her scrolls, then paused. She seemed reluctant to waste the little magic she had left on such a
petty quarrel.