"Frankowski,.Leo.-.Tank.3.-.Kren.Of.The.Mitchegai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

Duke Kren went to his Place of High Honor and let the feeding
stupor come over him as he watched the rest of the ceremony.
Except to nod and approve, he would not be needed again until the
very end.

Two sergeants of the Body Guard brought an ancient, ornate,
blood-stained throne to the center of the arena, positioned it to
face Duke Kren exactly, and stood by it on either side at attention.
The least of the six greatest generals stood and bowed to Duke
Kren, and when her genuflection was acknowledged, the general
placed her helmet and weapons belt on her chair and leaped
naked into the arena, her body still vigorous and only middle-aged.
As with most of those being honored this day, there was no
desperate need for her to be eaten yet, but the way before the
Krenbold would soon be hard, and none but the most vigorous
could stand the battles and the work to be done.

In the center of the arena, the general turned to Duke Kren, saluted
and said, "Always I have served you! Always we will serve you,
Duke Kren, our only leader, our once and future Duke!" She
eagerly sat on the blood-stained chair, facing him.

"Always thou hast served me well, General Kund, and always wilt
thou both serve me!" Duke Kren acknowledged, as the two
sergeants of the Body Guard strapped the general into the throne.

From the left and right side of the arena, two juvenals who had just
completed the metamorphosis to adult carnivores were brought
forth in separate cages, each carried by six sergeants. Their new
teeth were the meat slashing teeth of carnivores. Their stance was
erect and their tails had slimmed down from something resembling
an alligator's to something more like a monkey's. They were thin
and lean with the forced starvation of the change that had come
upon them, and now both were ravenously, mindlessly hungry.

Each was carried around the sides of the arena, so those in the
crowd could see the ceremonial identification marks that had been
tattooed on the arms of these carefully selected youths. They
stopped in front of Duke Kren, and he nodded his approval of
them. Then the cages were taken to either side of the bound
general, who was still sitting rigidly at attention, displaying neither
fear nor anticipation of the pain she would soon have to endure, but
rather the calm confidence of her belief in two better lives to come.

At a slight hand signal from Duke Kren, the sergeants split open
the general's huge brain case, using only their powerful claws. The
brain before them was not convoluted and bifurcated in the Earthly
fashion, but was a smooth, undifferentiated mass, much larger than
its Earthly counterpart. The sergeants carefully divided the brain in