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

pushed on, short, brawny legs making up in power what
they lacked in speed. Directly behind him he heard cats
circling, testing, slinking into the thickets by hidden
ways, spreading to flank him on both sides, converging
to head him off. Chane tripped and sprawled, suspended
for a moment in a nest of thorny brush. He pushed on
and stumbled again, and abruptly a fork of seasoned
hardwood was in his hand. He gripped it and followed as
it pulled him forward another step, then two.
"Come on!" the kender shouted. "We don't have all
day!"
With Chess pulling and his own legs pushing, Chane
burst from the entwining thickets and rolled onto clear
ground. He could see nothing except a mass of vines and
thorns in front of his face. He tried to stand, tripped over
vines tangled around his face, and fell again. Behind
him, to the right and left, were the rumbling purrs of big
cats. He braced himself for their attack, and waited.
And nothing happened.
Near at hand, the kender said, "Well, how about that!
I think we've found the 'Way.' "
Pulling and cutting at Chane's cloak of vegetation, the
kender cleared a viewport for him. He looked around.
They were near the center of a wide, open path that led
into forest. The path's surface was black gravel, its
stones glinting in the spangled light like bits of coal. And
alongside the path were several of the huge hunting cats,
glaring and whining, padding this way and that along
the verge of the gravel.
"They don't want to come onto the path," the kender
said. "I guess this is what the bird was talking about." He
turned his attention again to clearing thorny vines from
Chane, pulling and slicing at them, discarding them by
lengths and armloads. "You really are a mess," he noted

cheerfully. "Given a little time, I'll bet you could grow
berries."
Chane's arms were free then, and he set about untan-
gling himself, shrugging off the kender's attempts to
help.
"This works pretty well for that," Chess said, holding
up the implement he had been using. Chane stared at it -
a dagger made from a cat's tooth.
"What are you doing with that?" he demanded.
'That's mine."
"Is it I" the kender looked at it closely. "I found it some-
where, while we were rolling down the hill. Do you sup-
pose you lost it?"
"Give it back!"
"All right." Chess handed over the knife. "If that's how