"Dan Parkinson. The Gates of Thorbardin ("DragonLance Saga Heroes II" #2) (angl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

seen that. Have you?"
"Not from outside," Chane admitted. He growled
again, thinking about Firestoke's "armsmen" - actually
just a gang of toughs, the sort who were all too common
in some of the warrens and even parts of some of the clan
cities in the undermountain domain. Firestokel The old
rustbucket had made Chane believe that he was helping
him, outfitting him for a journey, providing armed com-
panions... and had betrayed him. What must Jilian
think? Thinking of Jilian he became so melancholy that
he went back to thinking about her father instead.
'Yes, by the Great Anvil!" he growled. 'Yes, I will go
back, and maybe I'll shove Slag Firestoke's pretensions
right down his throat."
"Being rich and famous might help," Chess allowed.
He shifted his pouch to a more comfortable position at
his belt, gripped his hoopak, and scuffed an impatient
foot. "Look at it, will youl I never saw a valley so reluc-
tant to be seen."
Chane picked up his packs. "Maybe it's a spell."
"I don't think so," the kender said. "I heard magicians
don't like to come here because it makes them itch or
something. The hill dwarf told me that." He glanced at
the fur-clad dwarf, then tipped his head to study Chane
critically. Clad entirely in black cat-fur, the only parts of
the dwarf that were visible were the top half of his face -
swept-back whiskers nearly as dark as the cat fur cov-
ered everything below his nose - his hands, and his
knees between kilt and boot-tops. Chess decided he

looked like a dwarf in a black bunny suit.
Chane stepped to the edge of the ridge and looked
down. Rough, fissured rock fell away in a vertical drop,
and through the mists he thought he saw water below.
Wings beat the air, and a dark shadow flitted across
the ledge. They looked up. A large bird, as black as mid-
night but with iridescent flashes where sunlight caught
its sleek feathers, had swooped down from somewhere
above and now rested on a gnarled snag just overhead. It
preened itself, shifted its footing on the snag, and cocked
its head to stare at them with one golden eye. "Go away,"
it said.
Chane blinked. "What?"
"It said, 'go away,' " the kender repeated. "I never
heard a bird say 'go away' before, have you? For that
matter, I've never heard a bird say a word of any kind -
except once, when a messenger bird in the service of
some wizard got lost in a crosswind or something and
landed on the flagstaff at Hylo Village. It talked for five
or ten minutes. Nobody knew what it was talking about,