Warsong (Hunter-Killer #2)

Chapter 25 - The Blame Game

That thought took an abrupt jolt when, after turning into a spacious junction in the underground passages, he caught a lungful of something that made him cough violently. Eyes watering he recoiled, blinking furiously and clattered straight back into the Alpha. It stepped backwards with an irritated growl and with a flick of one broad shin, pushed him upright again. Ryke looked around, confusion filling him until he spotted a faint wisp of grey-green smoke.

His mind flashed back to that first encounter with the Scraegan priest, when they'd taken the creature captive. The chamber in which it dwelt had been awash with smoke, a smoke that made the air thoroughly toxic to an unprotected human.

Ryke suddenly realised the Alpha wouldn't know that. No Scraegan would. The only humans that had ever broken this far into their sanctums had been Hunter-Killers, safe from the elements inside their mechs. Whirling around he looked up at his chaperone and shook his head vigorously, pointing down the tunnel where the smoke had come from.

It snorted.

He mimed a choking motion, praying to the Riverlords that the great beast would figure out his meaning. Another retching cough made him back away even further from the thin tendrils of smoke that kept coiling out of the tunnel mouth. The Alpha looked at him in confusion, then to the tunnel. Then its dark eyes widened, and it let out a guttural tirade, as though muttering to itself as it stomped past him and disappeared into the passage.

Alone all of a sudden, Ryke stood at what he hoped was a safe distance from the fumes. The acid, clover-like scent lingered in his nostrils, and he rubbed his eyes with both hands as the Alpha's footsteps receded. He looked around, not really sure if he was expected to follow or not.

He got his answer a moment later when a lot more footsteps began echoing towards him out of the tunnel mouth. Steeling himself, he squared his shoulders and looked up as the Alpha emerged from the passage again.

It was not alone.

Five scarred and hulking Scraegan warriors followed it out. Behind them came a beast so huge he could never forget it. Silver-grey fur rose like a wall of shining granite as the Scraegan priest loomed into view, so tall it had to stoop slightly as it entered the junction. Its primary arms hung down by its side like limp tree-trunks, while the secondary pair was clasped together across its enormous chest. It rose a meter higher than even the Alpha that had escorted him, trudging through the protective ring of guards, its breaths shaking the air around him. Instead of thick armour plates its vast torso was covered in some kind of sleeveless robe of sandy-brown material. It looked like some kind of tough, roughly woven fabric, inked with coiling, interlocking symbols whose meaning he could only guess at.

It looked down at him, nostrils flaring. He took a steadying breath, trying to keep a reign on the instincts that told him to run fast and far from this thing. Examining the massive Scraegan, he wondered if it could be the same one, the same creature they'd held captive in Brekka all those months ago? A lot had transpired since that time, and many Scraegans looked similar to his eyes, but the human army had only ever encountered one member of this unknown caste before.

His doubts evaporated when the priest made a passable attempt at saying his name.

It came out a little skewed and poorly enunciated – a Scraegan jaw couldn't really recreate human language in a meaningful way – but he heard the roll of an 'r' and the faint accent of the 'k' that it managed to create. Ryke looked at it in disbelief, but it inclined its boulder of a head to him and repeated the grunting, growling facsimile of his name.

A smile of relief flashed across his face. "Ryke," he confirmed, tapping himself on the chest.

Maybe he would live through this insane gambit after all. Nodding, he quickly swung the data slate off of his back. A little too quickly, as it turned out, as two of the guards stepped towards him, baring their canines and uttering growls of challenge. Before they could get any closer to him though, the priest gave them a quiet grunt followed by a short, sharp bark, and they eased back, watching him suspiciously.