• Пожаловаться

Troy Denning: The Titan of Twilight

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Troy Denning: The Titan of Twilight» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. категория: Фэнтези / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Troy Denning The Titan of Twilight

The Titan of Twilight: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Titan of Twilight»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Troy Denning: другие книги автора


Кто написал The Titan of Twilight? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

The Titan of Twilight — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Titan of Twilight», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Tavis pulled Blizzard’s nose to within reach of his free hand, then pinched her nostrils shut. The mare’s eyes flared, but she quieted instantly. The high scout returned to his feet and looked back toward the sleigh, where Avner sat blanched and wild-eyed, cursing the Queen’s Beast under his breath. Brianna sat far back in the passenger compartment, gripping the hand rails so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her complexion had turned pale, and the shadow of a grimace lingered on her face.

“Milady, are you injured?” Tavis asked. “Did that jolt-”

“I’m pregnant, not feeble.” Brianna glanced over the scout’s head, then hissed, “Hiatea have mercy!”

For the first time, Tavis noticed that the deafening roar behind him had been replaced by the hiss and pop of melting ice. The searing heat had yielded to the flesh-numbing cold of deep winter, and the acrid stench of the explosion had been swept down the canyon by the fierce boreal gale. A few of the wounded had raised their voices to shriek in eerie harmony with the wailing wind, but most were too stunned to do more than groan.

The three closest horse lancers had already struggled to their feet and were calling to their mounts, which were clambering up the steep hillside as fast their hooves could climb. More riders lay scattered across the road, their flesh as black as their scorched armor. Despite their terrible burns, several men were crawling over the hissing ice to their charred horses, already drawing the daggers that would put the loyal beasts out of misery. A huge plume of yellow smoke was billowing from the mine portal beside the road. The fumes were so thick that Tavis could not see the coughing, confused footmen on the other side of the cloud.

Behind Tavis, Avner gasped, “Milady, no! You’re the queen!”

“I’m also Hiatea’s high priestess.” Tavis turned to see his wife climbing out of her sleigh, her gaze fixed on the groaning soldiers ahead. “And those men are suff-”

Brianna’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, then she groaned sharply. She clenched her teeth and grabbed her abdomen with both hands.

Tavis bolted to her side, catching her in his arms. “The baby!”

He lifted Brianna back into the sleigh, then cast a wary eye toward the yellow smoke boiling out of the mine ahead. He did not relish the thought of his pregnant wife passing through those caustic fumes, but he cared less for the idea of watching her give birth in the open. Turning around was out of the question. It would be dark before they could clear the courtiers’ sleighs off the narrow road behind them.

“Avner, close the curtain,” Tavis ordered. “We’ve got to get the queen to the Silver Citadel, now!”

“There’s… no rush,” Brianna gasped. “It’s nothing… I’ve had these pains before.”

“What?”

The queen let out a slow breath, then sat up. “They probably don’t mean anything, Tavis.” Her face no longer appeared anguished, but her cheeks remained pale, and the pain was slow in fading from her eyes. “I’ve been having them now and again.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Tavis growled. “When we left Castle Hartwick, you must have known your time was near!”

“I knew no such thing-and I still don’t,” Brianna retorted. “It could be another year before I give birth-we really have no way to tell, do we?”

The high scout could not argue. The queen had been pregnant more than three years already, since just after the war broke out. Tavis had not worried for the first two years, since firbolg women carried their offspring that long, but he had grown steadily more concerned over the last year. The blood of Brianna’s divine ancestors still ran strong in her veins, and Tavis secretly feared that the three racial stocks of their progeny had combined in some terrible way to prevent the birth-or to make the infant the hideous monster of Galgadayle’s dream.

A low, grating rumble sounded from someplace inside the mine tunnel, then Radborne’s shocked voice echoed off the canyon wall. “F-Fire giants!”

Tavis looked toward the mine, where the large, boulderlike shape of a giant’s head protruded from the smoking portal. The brute’s ebony face was surrounded by a halo of orange beard and scarlet hair, but the high scout could see little more through the billowing yellow fumes.

Tavis took his bow off his shoulder. At eight feet long, the weapon was not quite as large as the legendary Bear Driller, which had been destroyed three years earlier in a battle against an ancient ettin. The new bow, however, was easily a match for Bear Driller, as it was strung with woven steel and reinforced with the rune-etched ribs of a glacier bear.

“Be ready, Avner.” Tavis pulled an arrow from his quiver. It was thicker than most, with red fletching, a stone tip, and runes carved along the shaft. “I’ll clear the way.”

The high scout was surprised to hear a nervous edge in his voice. Usually, he felt coldly tranquil at the beginning of a battle, unconcerned about anything except maneuvers and tactics. But today his thoughts were a boiling cataract of fear and doubt. Images of his pregnant wife kept appearing in the churning froth inside his head, like a swimmer being swept downstream.

The fire giant squirmed forward until his lanky shoulders came into view, then he thrust his powerful arms out of the mine and dug his fingers into the tunnel’s stone collar. He began to pull his torso out of the hole. The ice hissed and turned to steam beneath his breastplate, as though the heat of the forge still lingered within his black armor.

Tavis nocked his arrow and pointed the stone tip into the fuming portal, not even bothering to search for a gap in the giant’s black armor. The high scout drew his bow, at the same time hissing, “taergsilisaB!” A ruby gleam flared from one of the runes etched into his weapon, then flashed out of existence. He released the bowstring. A sharp clap echoed off the canyon walls, and the arrow flashed away, leaving a blinding streak of crimson between the bow and the tunnel mouth. The shaft flew into the mine, then pierced its target’s thick armor with a muffled clang.

The fire giant did not drop dead, for even an arrow driven by the lord high scout’s magic bow was not powerful enough to fell such a foe in a single strike. The mighty warrior merely grunted in surprise, then instinctively reached for his wound.

“esiwsilisaB!” Tavis cried, speaking the command word that would activate the runearrow’s magic.

From inside the mine came a glimmering blue flash and a mighty boom. The fire giant’s torso shot out of the portal and plummeted over the steep bank of Wyrm River, trailing a spray of crimson blood from the truncated waist. Blizzard whinnied in alarm, and Tavis grabbed her reins. A muffled crack reverberated deep within the mountain.

There was no opportunity to cry out or to cringe in fear, and even the queen’s mare did not have time to rear. The hillside simply folded inward over the tunnel. At the top of the ravine, a frozen buttress of stone lost its hold on the canyon wall and came rumbling down the slope. Tavis and Blizzard barely managed to retreat half a dozen steps before the avalanche roared over the mine portal and swallowed the fallen lancers of the Royal Snow Bear Company. The churning mass spread up the road, then spilled over Wyrm River’s steep bank and rumbled across the broad ribbon of ice, engulfing the fire giant’s truncated corpse and finally crashing against the far side of the canyon.

For a moment, Tavis could do nothing except stare at the mountainous jumble before him, listening to the dying thunder of the avalanche echo down the crooked gorge. He felt himself shivering in the cold wind and realized that he had broken into a nervous sweat. The landslide had come so close to swallowing his wife’s sleigh, and him with it, that he could have reached out with his bow and touched a frost-rimed boulder as large as himself. Even Blizzard seemed stunned by the close call. She stood stiff and motionless at his side, the muscles of her powerful shoulders trembling with fear.

Читать дальше

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Titan of Twilight»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Titan of Twilight» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Troy Denning: Dragonwall
Dragonwall
Troy Denning
Troy Denning: The Parched sea
The Parched sea
Troy Denning
Troy Denning: The Summoning
The Summoning
Troy Denning
Troy Denning: The Siege
The Siege
Troy Denning
Troy Denning: The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
Troy Denning
Troy Denning: The Obsidian Oracle
The Obsidian Oracle
Troy Denning
Отзывы о книге «The Titan of Twilight»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Titan of Twilight» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.