Книга только для ознакомления
.
With shouts of triumph they leaped into the air, gliding in
pursuit of the unicorn, with their swords swinging and their
fanged mouths wide.
The stag moved, stumblingly at first, into Darken
Wood. One by one the draconians alit and stalked him on
foot.
Through the long afternoon, the stag learned again the
old lesson: some hunters one may outrun, but not outlast.
Whenever he entered the slightest clearing, the draconians
covered more ground than he, gaining rest from the time
spent gliding. He wondered if they could fly at all, but soon
he was too tired to wonder. While he stayed in the densest
forest they could not fly, but he could not run easily, either.
Moreover, in the forest he had to break his own trail, but
they could follow in the way he left behind;
he was doing their trailbreaking as well as his own. If he
stopped to rest even a moment, he heard the snap of brush
and swish of branches closer behind him than they had been
when last he rested.
"I would not," he observed to himself as he raced after
one such pause, "have thought they could be so patient. It is
like being pursued by the dead, as I above all have cause to
know."
They had swords and daggers, and perhaps other
weapons as well, but the animal in the stag thought most of
those pointed teeth, the cold eyes, the hissing breath
|
