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But some of these tracks were reaching down into Earth’s thicker air, passing far below him. The whale had no hearing — he had no need of it in this thin, silent air, where no predators worked — but if he had he might have made out the thin howl of the meteors as they plunged back to the planet from which they had so recently been flung. He could even see where the first sea-bottom chunks fell: On the ground, far below, sparks of light bloomed like tiny flowers, one after the other. It was like the view from a high-altitude bomber.

For the first time since he was a chick the whale began to know fear. Suddenly this was no aerial light show but a rain of light and fire. It was a rain that was falling all around him — and it was getting thicker. Belatedly he turned. With a slow flap of his immense wings, he headed north.

Light pulsed.

The white-hot rock fragment was just a scrap. After the encounter with the whale it continued its descent toward the thick Cretaceous forests, only a fraction of its kinetic energy expended. But the whale’s complex nervous system brought his small brain messages of agonizing pain. When he turned his great head to the right, he saw that the surface of his wing was torn and scorched.

If the meteor had hit near the center of the wing, it might have made no more than a puncture, and the whale might have lived a little longer. But the whale had been unlucky. The meteor had punched through the joint of an immense, fragile flight finger. The wing began to fold up in great sections around the broken segment of bone.

The blue-gray Earth tipped over. Though he thrashed inelegantly with his good wing, the whale was already falling away from the horizontal — falling out of control, out of the sky. Still he remained conscious, slowly twisting, crumpling like a broken toy kite. But the meteor hail thickened. Bulletlike meteors tore tunnels through the fine caverns of his body, ripping open air sacs, smashing his delicate, light-as-air filigree skeleton, further puncturing his magnificent wings.

The pain became overwhelming. His mind filled with comforting, creamy memories of gliding high over an undisturbed Earth. He died long before the remnants of his torso reached the ground, his lungs crushed by the thick air.

Giant was struggling to get back to his feet.

Before him a stegoceras lumbered, bewildered, the scarlet-coated cap of bone and flesh on his head absurd. Thanks to a chance sheltering in a dense crop of araucaria this young male had survived the tornado, suffering no worse injury than a snapped rib. But his clan was gone, scattered by the wind. He lifted his head and howled, a great mournful lowing. It was like a chick’s call of distress, a lost call.

It wasn’t his mother who responded, but two huge carnivores, giganotosaurs, who came stalking slowly toward him, their heads bobbing, their eyes fixed on him. Even now, the game of predator and prey continued.

But through the adrenaline-induced fear that flooded his system, the stegoceras noticed something strange. A third giganotosaur, as big and powerful as the rest, was showing no interest in him. The third monster was head-bobbing, threatening, reacting to something that approached from out of the sky. Confused, fearful, the stegoceras turned to the south, where a lowering cancerous orange continued to spread through the racing black clouds.

The first meteor screamed overhead like a glowing hornet. It flew low over the smashed forest and slammed against a foothill beyond. Young volcanic stone exploded, and a secondary shower of steaming fragments hailed out, pattering against the debris-strewn ground. All the dinosaurs turned that way, shocked and startled, their innate animosity briefly forgotten.

And the second meteor passed through the stegoceras’s body, like a high-velocity bullet. A fraction of a second later, on meeting the impenetrable ground, the meteor dumped the last of its energy into the rock. The explosion burst apart the stegoceras’s body before it had time to fall. In the brief rain of blood, Giant cringed, uncomprehending.

Now the meteors began to land in the remains of the smashed forest. Fire splashed.

Giant and his brothers panicked and ran. But still the meteor rain thickened. The meteors pounded the ground around the giganotosaurs, digging shallow craters and starting fires even in the scattered undergrowth. It was as if the brothers were running through an artillery barrage.

Purga, too, could smell the smoke.

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После ядерной войны человечество было отброшено в темные века. Не желая возвращаться к былым опасностям, на просторах гиблого мира строит свой мир. Сталкиваясь с множество трудностей на своем пути (желающих вернуть былое могущество и технологии, орды мутантов) люди входят в золотой век. Но все это рушится когда наш мир сливается с другим. В него приходят иномерцы (расы населявшие другой мир). И снова бедствия окутывает человеческий род. Цепи рабства сковывает их. Действия книги происходят в средневековые времена. После великого сражения когда люди с помощью верных союзников (не все пришедшие из вне оказались врагами) сбрасывают рабские кандалы и вновь встают на ноги. Образовывая государства. Обе стороны поделившиеся на два союза уходят с тропы войны зализывая раны. Но мирное время не может продолжаться вечно. Повествования рассказывает о детях попавших в рабство, в момент когда кровопролитные стычки начинают возрождать былое противостояние. Бегство из плена, становление обоями ногами на земле. Взросление. И преследование одной единственной цели. Добиться мира. Опрокинуть врага и заставить исчезнуть страх перед ненавистными разорителями из каждого разума.

Александр Михайлович Буряк , Алексей Игоревич Рокин , Вельвич Максим , Денис Русс , Сергей Александрович Иномеров , Татьяна Кирилловна Назарова

Фантастика / Советская классическая проза / Научная Фантастика / Попаданцы / Постапокалипсис / Славянское фэнтези / Фэнтези