The iron narrow high walkway shrieked as six three-ton Iron-Carapace Boars launched into a timed together charge.
Their heavy, steel-shod hooves struck the metal grating with the rhythmic thunder of pile drivers, tearing up floor panels and sending shower after shower of orange sparks cascading into the amniotic vats below. Each beast was an engine of pure moving destruction. Their skulls had been surgically fused with curved, five-inch-thick rolled armor plate. They formed a wedge-shaped battering ram capable of puncturing heavy concrete bunkers at sixty-five miles per hour. Their breath blasted from flared nostrils in greasy plumes of vapor. Their porcine eyes glowed with the psychotic frenzy of forced hormonal overclocking.
Houndmaster Vane laughed from the high freight platform, his air-powered whip lashing out with a sharp CRACK-SNAP that discharged three thousand volts of blue electricity into the damp air, urging the beasts forward.
“Flatten him!” Vane shrieked through his clockwork jaw, the man-made chest muscle shaking with metal malice. “Pound that arrogant little gutter surgeon into a puddle of grease! Leave his hands for my trophy collection!”
Arthur didn’t retreat. He stood at the narrow choke point of the narrow high walkway where the gangway met the central command platform. He reached out with his left hand. His fingers tapped the cold dark rock armor scales of the giant statue standing steadfast beside him.
