"J. Robert King - Invasion Cycle 01 - Invasion" - читать интересную книгу автора (King Robert J)

themselves.
Out marched the first ranks of shield folk, the scuta.
They were stooped creatures. Their skulls had been
flattened and elongated into wide shields that guarded
their scuttling legs. There was little room for brain
anymore in that bony bonnet and little need. These fleet-
footed beasts were bred on instinct to rush into unknown
territories and flush out ambushers. They seemed giant
horseshoe crabs, inhuman except for the vestigial faces,
stretched and vacant, on their lower skulls. Shoulder to
shoulder, they bounded down the ramp and swept outward,
sniffing with enhanced olfactory cavities. Scuta were kept
hungry, that they would seek their victims not only for
sport but also for sustenance.


48
 J. Robert King

The next ranks were utterly different. Grown for brute
strength, stamina, and savagery, bloodstocks had a second
pelvis and a second pair of legs grafted across their
stomachs. They leaned forward perpetually as if in a vicious
charge. Steel beams pierced their shoulders, widening them
by three feet and providing artifact arms above their
natural pair. The bloodstocks pounded down the ramp and
tore out across the field. They were as fast as wolves and
charged like rhinos. If the scuta flushed out more forces
than they could slay, the bloodstocks would paint the
plains in blood.
After the scuta and the bloodstocks came phalanx after
phalanx of Phyrexian troopers. These vat-grown troops
were less specialized, with generally human configuration
and intelligence. They were tall and lean, their shoulders
bristling with horns, their faces taut like leather sacks. The
ribs of Phyrexian troopers had thickened into a full-torso
breastplate, and implants had developed into subcutaneous
armor across their bodies. Mechanical talons replaced
hands and feet. It was impossible to tell where flesh stopped
and mechanism began. Phyrexian troopers were meant to
march and haul and dig as well as fight. They were also
meant to follow orders instead of instincts.
Order and instinct had their mutual apotheosis in the
final figure to emerge. She did not come down the ramp
among the shouldering hordes of Phyrexians. She was not
one of the rabble. She was their leader, their god. It had
been part of the indoctrination of these troops that when
they looked up at Tsabo Tavoc, they saw mother and ruler
and slayer, all.
Tsabo Tavoc's eight legs helped the image. They were