"Harry Harrison - Deathworld 3" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

"They're coming this way!" the metallurgist shouted, dropping the tray
and turning to run. The alarm siren began to shriek and the guards poured out
of their tents.

The attackers hit the encampment with the sudden shock of an earthquake.
There was no time to prepare for it, and the men near the fence died without
lifting their weapons. The attackers' mounts clawed at the ground with pillar-
like legs and hurled themselves forward; one moment a distant threat, the next
an overwhelming presence. The leader hit the fence, its weight tearing it down
even as electricity arced brightly and killed it, its long thick neck crashing
to the ground just before the guard officer. He stared at it, horrified, for
just an instant before the creature's rider planted an arrow in his eye socket
and he died.
 Murder, whistling death. They hit once and were gone, sweeping close to
the fence, leaping the body of the dead beast, arrows pouring in a dark stream
from their short, laminated bows. Even in the half darkness, from the backs of
their thundering, heaving mounts, their aim was excellent. Men died, or
dropped, wounded. One arrow even tore into the gaping mouth of the siren so
that it rattled and moaned down into silence.

As quickly as they had struck they vanished, out of sight in the ravine
behind the shadowed rise, and, in the stunned silence that followed, the moans
of the wounded were shockingly loud.

The light was almost gone from the sky now and the darkness added to the
confusion. When the glow tubes sprang on, the camp became a pool of bloody
murder set in the surrounding night. Order was restored only slightly when
Bardovy, the expedition's commander, began bellowing instructions over the
bullhorn. While the medics separated the dying from the dead, mortars were
rushed out and set up. One of the sentries shouted a warning and the big
battlelamp was turned on and revealed the dark mass of riders gathering again
on the ridge.

"Mortars, fire!" the commander shouted with wild anger. "Hit them hard!"

His voice was drowned out as the first shells hit, round after round
poured in until the dust and smoke boiled high and the explosions rolled like
thunder.

They did not yet realize that the first charge had been only a feint and
that the main attack was hitting them from the opposite side of the camp. Only
when the beasts were in among them and they began to die did they know what
had happened. Then it was too late.

"Qose the ports!" the duty pilot shouted from the safety of the spacer's
control room high above, banging the airlock switches as he spoke. He could
see the waves of attackers sweeping by, and he knew how lethargic was the low-
geared motion of the ponderous outer doors. He kept pushing at the already
closed switches.