The scream of incoming living ordnance ripped through the ash mist long before Arthur reached the outer edge of Outpost 4-Delta.
THWIP-THWIP-BOOM!
Dozens of hardened bone quills, each the thickness of a javelin and packed with high-pressure phosphorus glands, slammed into the sandbagged low roof walls of the forward outpost. The defensive timber barricades splintered into kindling, igniting in plumes of white chemical flame that hissed aggressively against the damp gravel. The acrid stench of burning horn-protein and scorched earth rolled across the trench line in choking waves.
Through the dense smoke, the silhouettes of sixty spliced horrors swarmed across the defensive ditch.
Leading the charge were two dozen Bone-Hyenas. Hulking quadrupeds whose skulls had been heavy with welded iron plates, their jaws elongated and crowded with three rows of jagged, man-made carnassials. Above them, leaping from the ruined concrete lintels of an old freight warehouse, were the Quill-Raptors. Flightless bipedal hunting beasts whose dorsal ridges were lined with high-pressure muscle sheaths capable of launching bone darts at high-speed velocities.
Inside the crumbling outer edge stronghold, eight guard post cadets were huddled behind a buckled steel blast shield. Their standard-issue laser carbines were overheating, the red heat indicator lamps flashing wildly as their fire splashed uselessly against the hyenas’ armored skull crests.
