Ryke couldn't really believe what was happening. He walked along awestruck, the Scraegan Alpha shadowing his footsteps like a living monolith. He tried to ignore the shake in his ribs every time the great beast took a step, instead focusing on where exactly he was supposed to be going.

As he walked, he saw more evidence of the Scraegan war bands that infested this stretch of rocky ground. Most would be concealed underground in the warrens, he assumed, ready to come bursting forth to counter any attack. That was how they had operated through the early stages of the assault, allowing human spearheads to drive forward into a crush before unleashing reinforcements from all angles.

Sometimes they managed to drive off their enemies. Sometimes they didn't. Both sides were quickly piling up corpses.

Their destination came into view a few moments later – at least he assumed this was where they were going. It looked like the surface entrance to a warren, though this one was much larger than others he'd encountered. The jagged-topped wall of black rock jutted up out of the land like the lower jaw of an enormous monster, irregular teeth biting skywards. He could just make out the bulky shapes of Scraegan warriors squatting in crags, and the faint shine of the larger, mounted furnace cannons aimed towards the human line.

Doubtless more warriors lurked under the surface. He wondered just how many Scraegans filled these great tracts of barren rock. Thousands of them had assaulted Brekka during the siege, at the time an unprecedented number. As this new war ground on he was starting to think they'd barely scratched the surface of just how many Scraegans lived in the southern reaches of the planet.

For once, it looked like he would be getting inside a Scraegan warren without having to blast the doors open and at the moment he didn't know how he felt about it. Almost invisible, two slabs of stonework cracked open at a growl from the Alpha, and a great, yawning darkness opened up on the other side. The sheer scale of the thing made it clear he didn't belong, designed for beings that towered over a diminutive human.

He stepped through anyway, feeling the aching absence of his Hunter-Killer in every step. It was very easy to be brave when encased in a fifteen-ton killing machine, he realised. Swallowing down his nerves, he walked through the entrance and was engulfed by a warm, burning, musty smell. The Alpha's massive footsteps echoed through behind him.

Once he'd gotten inside, the darkness of the entrance gave way to several towering braziers that lit the space, creating globes of orange around which he saw several Scraegans lurking. Eyes tracked him in the fiery gloom and he could hear the low rumble of growls and grunts from the warriors as they realised a human was walking into their midst. Tunnel entrances opened off all round him, disappearing down into the depths beneath the Scraegan defences. Who knew how many settlements and warbands might be contained down there?

Something nudged him from behind.

It was probably the gentlest movement the Alpha could manage, but it still almost flattened him and he went stumbling forward with a yelp, before biting down the shrill exclamation angrily. He twisted back to look at the Alpha. It pointed with its axe.

Following the motion, he saw a large tunnel mouth at the far end of the chamber lit up by two braziers and with a pair of Scraegan warriors lingering beside it. Squaring his shoulders and straightening his back, he set off towards it, some prideful part of him eager to show the enemy that he didn't fear them, even though right now they could have swatted him out of existence in the blink of an eye.

On they went, passing the guards and descending into the bowels of the warren. He passed dozens of warriors as they passed in and out of tunnel systems, some stopping and staring, others not even noticing he existed. The Alpha directed him with grunts and points of its weapon until he lost all sense of direction. He could have been anywhere in the badlands by now. But, he told himself, if they were going to kill him they'd have done it by now. The Scraegans didn't exactly excel in subterfuge and mind games.

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.

Ryke gulped and made a point of moving more slowly now. After getting this far the last thing he needed was to accidentally get himself smashed to a pulp by startling one of the warriors. Laying the oversized data slate out again, he keyed the command that made the machine bark out a Scraegan greeting. No-one knew if it translated to 'hello', 'good morning' or anything in between, but the context was enough to get the point across.

The warriors looked at each other uneasily. The Alpha gave a derisive snort. Towering over them all, the priest huffed out a breath which he couldn't really gauge, before it gave him a heavy nod, indicting that he should continue.

So far so good.

A three-dimensional screen flashed up from the data slate and this time it showed a zoomed-out view of the fighting that had taken place over the past weeks. Ryke could see the darkening of expressions on the faces of the warriors, and low, bass growls that he felt in his ribcage began to reverberate through the chamber. Quickly, he froze the video, pointed at it, then keyed another command into the data slate.

The computer barked out a tinny, but passable approximation of the Scraegan phrase for 'halt'. A sharp bark that rose and fell in the space of a second, it echoed off the stonework and died into nothing. Ryke could only hope the Scraegans understood the recorded snippets of their language and could add them to his frantic gestures.

None of them moved, so he carried on. The next video loaded onto the data slate would be the most important for accomplishing his aims of getting some kind of ceasefire. More growls filled the air when he played out the combat camera footage of his own encounter with the crawling monsters of the deep. He let it run, right through to show the Scraegan pack and the Hunter-Killers working together to kill the thing. And then showed his order to allow the Scraegans to walk away.

The rumblings from the Scraegan warriors took on a distinctly intrigued tone now and he saw them exchanging looks. The Alpha's thick, armoured brow rose in surprise. Ryke pressed on with the last, relatively simple piece of the puzzle, feeling sweat beading on his cheeks and running down his back. Heat from the Scraegan fires flowed through these broad passages, so even though he was far underground it didn't feel like he was out of the punishing suns of Rychter.

He brought up the image of the creature once more and punched in a final command. The data slate snarled out a guttural command which he knew well. He'd heard it hundreds of times on the battlefield and in combat reviews. Again, they had no precise translation, but he knew if nothing else it meant attack. He repeated the command, pointed to the Scraegan, to himself and to the image of the arthropod.

The priest took a cumbersome step forward and he froze mid-gesture. Its dark eyes regarded him coldly, drifting from his tiny form to the data slate and back again. The secondary arms unclasped from its waist and one extended towards him. Ryke stiffened, holding his ground and feeling a throb of pain along the line of his metal jaw where he'd been unwittingly clenching.

It pointed at the creature on the display.

Then it pointed at Ryke.

He watched with growing consternation as the priest brought its primary arms together at the wrists, a gesture it had learned from him what seemed like years ago now. A tremor of discomfort rattled all the way up his spine as the Scraegan slowly drew its arms apart again. It stared at him expectantly.

Ryke hesitated, glancing down at the display then back up at the great beast. It stood there, statuesque, waiting for him to respond. He tried to think. He'd used that gesture to communicate to the Scraegan priest that he wanted to release it, and it had understood the meaning well enough then. But how did that connect to the creatures?

The priest repeated its gesture, to the display, to him and then the mime of breaking chains. He felt like he grasped the implication but it didn't make any sense to him. The thing seemed to be suggesting that humans were somehow responsible for letting the animals loose. To make sure he understood, Ryke mirrored the gesture. He pointed to the display, then to himself, then brought his wrists together.

Then apart.

The huge Scraegan dipped its head. One of the nearby warriors snuffled something in the Scraegan tongue and a ripple of what sounded alarmingly like laughter passed around the group. With a curt bark, the priest silenced them, and their heads lowered. Apparently, they had underestimated the seriousness of the situation. Ryke suddenly felt sick as he tried to wrap his head around the implications.

The priest raised one of his primary arms, resting a huge paw on the shoulder of the Alpha. The two Scraegans brought their massive skulls together, rumbling, grunting and growling in low tones to one and other. When they stepped apart the Alpha turned to face him again. The priest, however, turned away, its footsteps thumping deeply as it descended back down into the passage through the wreathes of acrid smoke. Its warrior guards waited, watching him for a few seconds before they followed, leaving him alone with the Alpha.

It pointed with its oversized pick-axe, back the way they had come.

Time to leave.