Hey, there ladies and gents I hope everyone's 2022 is going well, firstly I'd like to give you all a big thank you all for sticking with me all this time and I do hope you've all been enjoying the ride, secondly, I'd like to give a big shout out to my dear friend CelfwrDderwydd for providing the Beledon race for me to play about with in both The Enemy of my Enemy and now in Hybrid Wars so show him some live people.
Lastly, I'd like to say that I haven't forgotten about Mortis and things are still moving forwards and as soon as the new cover is complete everything will go ahead as planned with its release, so now with a final big thank you to you all this is GhostNobody signing off and saying let's get on with the show...
Chapter 56: Maze Runners.
"Fuck Fuck Fuck!" Jay yelled as he ran, both he and Xao were running through the labyrinth in a blind panic.
"What in the name of hell is that thing!?" Xao yelled between pants as he full-on sprinted down the narrow passages.
"It's a fucking Nightmare Assassin! A Dream Warrior went fucking bad and if they are here then shit has royally his a colossal sized fan!" Jay ran turning and firing at the shadow-like creature behind them.
He couldn't understand why the fucking thing hadn't finished them off already, the thing was easily fast enough and strong enough to take them out without even really trying, having seen the Clan's Seekers of Truth move he knew that they could easily kill them without even breaking a sweat, but this fucker was just toying with them.
Eerie deep laughter echoed all around them seemingly coming from every surface and shadow all at once, this made Jay snap his weapon around in a wide panicked arc looking for a target to shoot at and for a moment he saw a figure in the dark corner ahead of them and he fired a railgun slug at it in the hope that it wouldn't be able to avoid the hypersonic rounds, the plasma shot was simply too slow to be able to hit one of these things they'd simply dance around it like it was a shiny stationary lamp, but maybe just maybe the incredibly fast slugs might get lucky.
His first show was bang on target but as it slammed into the figure it burst into a cloud of shadow-like black smoke that simply swirled and dissipated with maniacal laughter as it did.
"FUCK!" Jay yelled in anger as the smoke dissipated seemingly melting through the cracks of the walls.
"Come out and fucking fight you fucking coward!" Jay yelled at the walls spinning on the spot with his rifle in his shoulder.
"And why would I do that little human? Why would I do such a thing when I'm having so much fun? When I'm done with you your souls will be so drenched in fear that it will sustain me for months!" the oddly rough and smooth but also deep voice said sounding like it was coming from all around them.
"This way!" Xao suddenly called from ahead of him and he turned and sprinted towards his new friend at full speed.
As much as he hated to admit it the Nightmare Assassin was right, his heart felt like it was smashing against the inside of his ribs, which seemed to have turned to solid ice, he couldn't ever remember being this scared in his life, how their Grand Patriarch stood up against these things with such courage he had no idea, at the same time he could also feel little ice slivers worming through his soul and they seemed to be coming from outside of his mind, he got the feeling it was some kind of psionic attack being produced by the unseen Nightmare Assasin, it was said that a single Dream Warrior could bring courage to an entire army giving them the will to fight with all they were, so if that was true then he guessed it was also possible for Nightmare Assassins to do the opposite.
The more he thought about that the more it made sense, the mere presence of a single Seeker among the Hunters or the Saviours gave them all a tremendous courage boost, he'd heard the stories and after the Dark Star, he'd heard the reports of how they'd fought and what they'd done as well as those from both the Raptorian conflict and the Serpentinus one as well, how their Seekers had stood before the rest of the troops and given them an example to follow, how they'd fired their very souls up with righteous fury and courage.
So it made sense that they would also be able to do the opposite to the enemy as well, to sap their will to fight, to fill them with doubt and fear, which would be something very much amplified in a Nightmare Assasin which for all accounts seemed to revel in their enemies fear, it was like it nourished them somehow.
The main problem they had here was that even if they escaped this God's forsaken labyrinth chances were they wouldn't escape the fucking Nightmare Assasin pursuing them, they had absolutely no chance of outrunning it or even hiding from it, just like a Seeker it would be able to feel their life essence and pursue it but unlike Seekers they didn't have any rules to abide by, the only rules they had were any they imposed upon themselves or that the Darkness forced upon them if any.
They had been running in circles for what felt like hours, their anxiety was crushing them like the weight of an anvil on their chests the entire time and it felt like that with every hour that passed another Yautja girl climbed on top of it and perched her ample rear on it adding to the weight crushing down on them, hell it even felt like the air was getting thinner.
"There! There I see daylight! We found the way out!" Xao suddenly yelled to his right and Jay's head snapped towards where he was pointing.
Just as his new friend had said Jay saw a dim light that was unmistakably daylight thanks to its white and golden mixture, "Go Go Go! I'll lay down some suppressive fire!" Jay yelled and he spun on the spot running backwards his eyes snapping from shadow to shadow, the only lights they had were the flashlight on the barrel of his rifle and the burning torch that Xao had been carrying made from cloth, plant fibre, tree sap and a big stick, so shadows were in great abundance.
Suddenly ahead of them directly in their path smoke rushed in and the very shadows themselves seemed to knit together into a figure dressed in a large hooded cloak and black armour, he was also holding a long wicked looking sword.
"End of the road humans, playtime is over I do believe," the figure said in a blatantly Scalathor sounding voice, though oddly it sounded male.
Without saying a thing Jay snapped his rifle onto it and began firing, the hypersonic slugs making loud sharp cracks and they not only bust the sound barrier but left it far behind as they shot right at the figure leaving blue wispy trails in their wake that kinda looked like long blue corkscrews floating in the air.
But as it turned out the slugs hit nothing but air anyway, the Nightmare Assassin flashed from side to side leaving a trail of shadow smoke in his wake, "Run Xao!" Jay yelled as he kept firing and he could see the indecision on his new friend's face but thankfully did as he was told while Jay provided a wall of rounds to prevent the Nightmare Assassin from focusing on anything but him as he ran along the wall towards the large archway at the end of the passage that had been cut into the stone.
Somehow it worked, either the Nightmare Assasin was so focused on Jay that he didn't see Xao sprinting for the exit or he simply wasn't worried about being able to catch up with him that he simply focused on the one shooting at him for the time being.
Suddenly the Nightmare Assassin simply disappeared and as Jay frantically searched for him the hairs on the back of his neck prickled with electrical energy, out of absolutely no-where the figure simply appeared right in front of him and for the briefest of seconds he got a perfectly clear image of its face and it indeed was a male Scalathor with black and purple scale as well as ruby red glowing eyes.
A force so strong that it folded up Jay up like a cheap deck chair under the weight of a healthy Yautja girl hit him in the stomach not only knocking the wind out of him but propelling him towards the exit through the air like one of his rifle slugs.
Jay shot straight past the still running Xao who just reached the archway and he hit the ground outside bouncing along the floor blinding him as the sunlight hit him full in the face until he came to a rest flat on his back with his lungs fighting against his spasming abdominal muscles to try and desperately draw in breath.
Slowly the Nightmare Assassin moved out of the darkness of the labyrinth which seemed to have come out on a rather large courtyard of some kind, he was advancing on Jay with zero worry in his twisted features, Xao rushed to his new friend's side and desperately grabbed him under the armpits to try and drag him clear but by the look in the young Asian man's eyes he knew it was pointless, they both did, there was no way they could outrun this thing, this was it they were done for.
"Ahh I am finally free of that accursed trap and it is such a shame our game must end little humans, but do not worry I'll be sure to put your souls to good use when we come for your precious Clan, my Mistress really does have designs on that Grand Patriarch of yours, such a shame that you won't be around to see him break and finally fall but I'll make sure to allow your souls to feel every last delicious drop of pain and sorrow he feels before he does, who knows I may even very well let you see your Clan collapse and fall to us through my eyes when the time comes, I'm kind like that," the Nightmare Assassin said with a sickening laugh.
"Y-Y-You will never best Clan Mason, they will hunt you down and avenge us and they will destroy every last one of you sick fucks!" Jay tried to yell but thanks to his still spasming abdominals it came out as nothing more than a whisper.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you over the screaming fear in your soul!" the Nightmare Assassin said with another sickening laugh and with that he raised his blade to strike down on the pair.
"I'm sorry I failed you Xao," Jay said in a whisper.
"You didn't fail me, my friend," Xao said hugging him tightly from behind.
"Rawaaah!" the Nightmare Assassin yelled and he swung his large curved blade down on them but just before it made contact with them there was a sharp clang noise and a high pitched screech.
Jay's eyes snapped open and he looked upward, to his surprise a truly massive blade was wedged in-between them and the Nightmare Assassin's blade, for a moment his heart soared like an Eagle, was it the Clan!? Had they found them, but tilting his head upwards a slight amount swiftly answered that, no they had not but something sure had.
The figure that stood over Xao and Jay was absolutely massive, it stood about nine maybe even ten feet tall, it was dressed in an old-style metal plate armour that looked like it had come right out of one of their school history books that detailed medieval arms, armour and knights.
The armour itself was crimson in colour having either been forged that way or painted with some kind of lacquer that had been soaked into the metal to the point where its very essence seemed infused with it.
Jay's eyes were drawn to the incredible blade that the creature held and he couldn't help but be impressed by the sheer size of the thing, it reminded him of the claymore sword that the Grand Patriarch himself used only even larger again, it was wider with a broader blade and what was more impressive was the creature was holding it one-handed.
Jay's eyes travelled up the long bright silver, rune-covered blade to the guard and he saw the creature's large gauntlet covered hand holding the hilt just below the guard, that's when his eyes saw the metal-encased arm of the person holding this blade which was easily bigger than he was and even dispute the metal encasing it he could tell it was bigger than either of his thighs, hell he'd put it on part with his fucking waist or near enough.
The underside of the plate armour was covered in a mixture of what looked to be leather and chain mail and Jay just couldn't help but think to himself how fucking hot the person encased inside it must be, he also thought that the Yautja girls were gonna be jealous as hell when they saw the fucking muscles on these guys because despite not really being able to see the person encased in the metal as even their head was encased in a large odd-shaped helmet that had only a silt for them to see out of, though interestingly he couldn't decide if the two large curved horns on it's head were attached to the helmet or sticking out of it.
That's when he realised that the strange red knight was indeed a she as with a large flick of the massive sword which sent the Nightmare Assassin's blade sliding right off its own and caused them to jump backwards to glare at the new-comer with hate-filled eyes, but as she did Jay got a good look at the front of the knight's armour and more specifically the breastplate which by the swells in the upper half indeed hid breasts below it and by the size of the bumps in the plate rather large ones at that
"Oh, so one of the mighty Beledon finally shows their fucking faces! Finally, decided to stop hiding behind your fucking labyrinths and fucking traps have you? Well, no matter savage you will fall before us all the same and once we're done wiping out all of you fucking savages you Dream Warrior will have no choice but to either bend the knee and join us or die with your mud hut dwelling friends!" the Scalathor Nightmare Assassin snarled.
The creature dressed in plate armour pointed the tip of its massive sword at him and spoke and to Jay's surprise its voice was both deep and soft and although he could not understand its words at all he knew both a challenge and menace when he heard it the knight was challenging the Nightmare Assassin to a duel.
Oddly enough the words it spoke almost sounded familiar to Jay but he didn't know why, it was almost like the way the words rolled sounded familiar to him, suddenly his wrist computer beeped and he looked down at exactly the same time as his gen three translation system woke up and spoke to him inside his head, "Unknown language detected beginning decryption protocols, please get the subject to provide both written and vocal samples for analysis" it said.
By the Eternal Huntress this new universal translation system that had been approved and rolled out by the science hive recently rather weirded him out, he still didn't really know how he felt about having this hardware implanted into his head but so far it seemed to be working, the unit was made up of four major components that were implanted directly into the user for ease of use and to prevent damage.
First up there were the aural detection units, these were implanted in the ear canals just behind the eardrums and they detected vocal spoken words, second up there were the optical implants which were implanted right into the retina of the user's eyes to detect written languages, thirdly there was the vocal synthesiser which was implanted into the user's vocal cords which could modify their speech if needed.
Finally, there was the most important piece the language processor which was implanted into the language centre of the brain and effectively made use of the user's own brainpower to decrypt the language encountered though it was also boosted by being connected wirelessly to the user's wrist comp, now as a front line Saviour who was posted to one of the Clan's scout ships Jay had been given this new tech as a top priority as he and his fellow Saviours had a much higher chance of encountering new life in the depths of space that they traversed and lo and behold the bloody science hive's logic had been right on the money once again.
"Save your honour and your fucking 'nobility' for someone who gives a shit you overgrown bovine! Firstly I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to kill them and then I'm going right to your precious village and for infuriating me with that fucking labyrinth of yours I'm going to burn it and all your savage friends to fucking ashes and even better when my brethren are finished this whole fucking planet will be nothing more than a hunk of burning coal floating in space and you will all be no more, you will all rue the day you crossed the Dark Seed!" the Nightmare Assassin bellowed out of the blue and before Jay could even blink he charged.
It was like watching a man become nothing more than smoke, the Nightmare Assasin moved so fast that he became little more than a black blur that trailed black smoke behind him, but apparently, the crimson knight had a few tricks of her own up her heavily armoured metal sleeves and by tricks, he meant Dream Warrior tricks because she responded in kind to the Nightmare Assassin's charge by becoming a crimson shaped blur that met him with equal if not greater fury.
To both Jay and Xao's eyes they were nothing more than to blurs that smashed together over and over again the clangs and clashes of their blades ringing out over the landscape, no more words were spoken and if they were they were unheard by either of their ears but the exchange of blows was certainly heard and Jay was so completely amazed that a creature as large as this crimson knight could move so fast despite having seen the Seekers move it still always shocked him to see Dream Warriors in action, it was like watching living Gods going at it.
Even to those who lived around them, everyday Dream Warriors were still quite a mystery to most people, other than knowing they were souls blessed by the God's themselves outside of the Seekers most of the rank and file Hunters and Saviours were truly unaware of what they were capable of, though it wasn't like the Seekers were secretive it was just hard for most non-Dream Warriors to fully understand them, Jay was sure that even the Grand Matriarch herself was unaware of what her beloved husband and son were fully capable of.
With a clash that sounded like thunder peeling over the landscape the pair of clashing Dream Warriors flew apart and both Jay and Xao who were still clinging together while watching them in awe flinched as the sound washed over them making their skin vibrate and all of their hair stood on end.
The crimson knight was holding her sword in a battle stance with his drawn back so the hilt was held into her centre mass at her core and the blade facing towards Nightmare Assassin who now appeared to be holding both the sword they had seen him use but also now it had been joined by a jagged black dagger in his off-hand, but he wasn't the only one who decided to adapt his fighting stance because seemingly out of nowhere the crimson knight pulled out what looked like a bladed mace head that was attached to a long chain.
"You've got spirit savage I'll give you that much, maybe killing you would be a bad idea, maybe my mistress would be more please if I dragged you before him as tribute, undoubtedly she would enjoy breaking you and watching you fall, you would make a fine addition to our army!" the Nightmare Assassin snarled but Jay could actually hear the fatigue in his voice as he was panting in-between words.
But it seemed the crimson knight wasn't in the mood for idle chit chat and she began to whirl that huge mace around he head while switching to a one-handed stance with her sword, the chain rattled as it whirled around her head and in only a couple of mighty swings Jay couldn't even see the mace head as it whirled around her.
The Nightmare Assassin braced himself as his eyes tracked the mace before with a flick of her wrist she sent it speeding out towards him transferring that centrifugal force into linear force and sending the mace head speeding towards the Nightmare Assassin faster than either Jay or Xao's eyes could see, but apparently not faster than the Nightmare Assassin's eyes could see as he whirled his blades and deflected it with ease, but before he could even truly readopt his battle stance and his smug smile it was wiped clean off his face in much the same way as his head was wiped clean from his shoulders.
As it turned out the mace had been nothing more than a distraction, because as he had been busy deflecting the mace he had made the fatal mistake of taking his eyes off the crimson knight who had already been chasing her mace and with a huge arcing swing took the Nightmare Assassins head clean from his shoulders and propelling it vertically upwards like a cork popping out of a champagne bottle which given the fountain of blood that chased it skywards, the image was rather complete.
The Nightmare Assassin's dead body simply stood there as his crimson life-giving blood fountained away into the air all around him before finally succumbing to the effects of gravity and simply falling first to his knees as his legs folded up and then onto his front with a soft thump as his body settled.
It was only then that his head came back down out of the sky indicating how much force the crimson knight had put into that swing that had ended his life, it hit with a thud and rolled away before the knight stopped it with a metal-plated hoof-like foot, Jay couldn't help but find himself wondering if the last thing the Nightmare Assassin saw was the impossibly blue skies above their head before plummeting back to the earth to join his body in the dirt again.
Jay and Xao couldn't help but look at the now lifeless eyes of the Nightmare Assassin which while they had stopped glowing were still blood red, a shudder passed down Xao's spine and was mirrored by one that passed down Jay's spine, even in the days of the railguns and plasma rifles swords killed just as well as they always had and this knight had just proved it.
They were both so entranced by the lifeless eyes that the pair barely noticed the large shadow now falling over them until the appearance of a large blade tip before their eyes snapped both of their attention upwards and they found themselves staring right up at the truly massive and very impressive not to mention imposing figure of the crimson knight.
"Pwo ta vola?" the knight said in that deep soft voice and Jay was surprised that he was actually able to pick out the individual words in the alien's tongue.
"I-I-I don't understand you but we are not here to fight you," Jay said lifting his hands up to show that he meant no harm, his weapon was attached to him by its sling thankfully or God's only would have known where it would have gone when he got hit by the Nightmare Assassin speaking of which the pain from such a forceful impact now made itself known.
"Pwo ta vola!?" the crimson knight said much more forcefully while jabbing its sword at them but thankfully not making contact.
"I-I-I don't understand you b-b-but I am a human being from Clan Mason, I am a Saviour called Jay Mathers," Jay said pressing one of his open hands against his chest as he said his name.
The knight watched him cautiously, "J-J-Jay M-M-Mathers" the knight said stammering as she tried to pronounce his name in a tongue that was obvious as alien to her as she was to him.
Jay couldn't help but smile and nod, "That's right, Jay Mathers and this here is Xao," Jay said touching his own chest when he said his name and then Xao's when he said his name and finally the young Asian man had released him from his death grip as he seemed far more at ease with the large alien knight than he did with fierce but now dead Nightmare Assassin.
"J-J-Jay, X-X-Xao?" the knight said moving the tip of her sword to point at each one in turn as she said their names obviously still struggling with their language and Jay nodded clapping his hands together happily which made the knight jump and tighten her grip on the blade and also making Jay hold his hands back up to placate her.
Suddenly the sound of what sounded to Jay like thundering hooves washed over them and both Jay and Xao turned their heads to look and were just in time to see four more of the aliens come running out of the trees behind them and that's when it hit Jay that they really hadn't even looked around themselves since they exited the labyrinth as they had just been so focused on the fight that they simply hadn't had time so it was only known that he realised that they were right on the edge of yet another forest, only this one looked like it was made out of some kind of large pine-like trees.
But this was also when they got their first look at the aliens as the four that came out of the woods while they were wearing various types of armour which amounted to everything from plated leather to a mixture of chain mail and some kind of dragon scale armour made from metal scales that were fixed onto soft-looking leather, but most importantly none of them was wearing full head helmets.
"They are bovine! They look like fucking minotaurs!" Xao exclaimed loudly as they caught sight of the aline's features and he was completely spot-on, Jay had thought that the statues they had seen at the entrance to the labyrinth had been some form of Gods but it turned out they have simply depicted their species as they looked like sentient bulls or maybe cows?
Either way, they legitimately looked like perfectly sculpted minotaurs from ancient Earth mythology which they had studied in school back in the Clan, each of them looked like they had a dome-topped metal helmet on top of their heads and it was only then that Jay realised that the horns sticking out of them were actually attached to their heads and not mounted on the helmets, so they were a Bovine species and this rather shocked Jay as given his experience with Aliens to this point he had never imagined one looking so much like an Earth animal that it shocked him but here they were, walking talking intelligent bovine people.
The group of four soldiers who Jay quickly realised were all female like the crimson knight though whether or not they were all Dream Warriors like her as well was up for debate all ran towards them making the ground somewhat under their considerable weight, each of them looked like they were fucking carved given how much their leather armour bulged to contain their powerful-looking muscles.
They instantly surrounded both Jay and Xao and quickly drew weapons and pointed them at them and the mixture of weapons they held was as varied as the armour they wore, everything from a single-handed long sword to a two-headed battle-axe and even a war hammer the likes of which would make their Grand Matriarch drool as she did like a nice war hammer and given that the head on this thing was the size of Jay's chest she'd love it.
The group began to converse so fast between themselves rapidly to the point where Jay wasn't able to pick out pretty much any of the words being spoken other than the odd one or two though he did hear both his name and Xao's being said more than once by the crimson knight and every time it was one or more of them looked at the one whose name was said.
Suddenly one of the large alien's pulled out a length of beautifully woven rope that looked like it had been woven out of a mixture of what looked like sile and what could have been horse hair giving it both strength and tension but it also gave it a rather beautiful monochrome effect being both black and white.
The one who held the rope put her single-handed long sword back into a hip-mounted scabbard and that's when Jay noticed how wide her hips were as the huge almost Celtic style braided metal belt that held her scabbard circled her core looked long enough that it could be used to hogtie him.
In a series of surprisingly graceful and dextrous movements she braided the rope into a series of loops and then she stepped forwards towards Jay and reached for his nearest hand causing him to snap it back to his chest protectively which also caused all of the aliens to snap their weapons back up, but the crimson knight seemed to sense his fear and rather than become aggressive at his resistance to having his hands bound she spoke in a surprisingly soothing voice as she both used her sword to lower the others weapons and reached out for his hands with her other hand.
Jay had no idea what it was that was making him want to trust her, maybe it was because she had just saved their lives or maybe it was more but before he even knew what he was doing he had reached out his hands and she had taken them in her massive ones and he'd allowed himself to have his slender wrists bound in the loops that the other alien had woven, they were pulled tight enough to bind his hands but not tight enough to hurt him.
"J-J-Jay what do we do!? What are they going to do to us!? Xao exclaimed.
"Just be cool Xao I don't believe they want to hurt us, if they did they would have done so already, the one in crimson plate armour is a Dream Warrior, if she wanted us dead we fucking would be, so don't make any stupid moves and just go with it, they probably just want to make sure we don't attack them till they figure out what we are and whether we want to hurt them or not, so just smile, be nice and go with it," Jay said though weather he was trying to reassure the frightened young man or himself.
Strangely they didn't try to relieve Jay of his weapon though whether they knew it was a weapon or not was debatable, but maybe they figured that with their hands tied they would be disabled anyway, once their hands were secured into the lengths of rope the crimson knight took the reigns from the woman who had woven them and she tied the ends onto her belt before lifting both Jay and Xao to their feet by their armpits making Jay wince and cry out in pain from the impact site on his side.
He saw an instant look of shock that morphed into concern and the women spoke rapidly to one another, one of them suddenly approached Jay and Jay looked up at her, unlike the others who all seemed to be covered in a light chocolate brown coloured fur this one seemed to be a mixture of black and white with swirling patches all over her, then without asking an invitation or permission not that he'd have understood if she had she reached out and placed her massive hands on his chest and probed gently with her fingers and when he winced she knew exactly where his injury was located.
She pointed at the area and spoke to the others after very gently probing the area and from the growing pain in his side Jay was pretty sure he had at least three fractured ribs though thankfully not fully broken, though it was now growing painful to either move or even breathe thanks to the adrenaline wearing off steadily.
Instantly the crimson knight was right there at his side and she bent down to appraise him carefully and after her careful appraisal, she apparently decided that he was indeed injured but also capable of moving around under his own steam so gently she tugged the reigns indicating that they were to follow so they did and with that, the crimson knight turned towards the odd-looking pine-like forest though the green of the trees was far lighter than any pine tree Jay had ever seen before and they set off into the trees with Jay and Xao now tucked right into the centre of this merry band of aliens.
The walk through the forest seemed to take hours and Jay was aware of the fact that they seemed to keep crossing both game trails and paths as they made their way through, thankfully despite the size of their incredibly long hoof tipped legs the aliens did not outpace the two little humans in their midst, they seemed infact to be deliberately slowing themselves down to go at the pace of the two short humans but jay was more than aware of the near-constant attention being paid to them by the constant glances from the group around them.
Though to be fair he was far more concerned by the growing pain in his side that was making it excruciating to both breathe and move but he forced himself onwards until finally, they reached what must have been their village which was hidden from view behind a truly massive fort-like wall of carved redwood tree trunks that surrounded it.
They stopped before a pair of massive carved and decorated gates and the crimson knight let out a bellowing call that sounded like a bull bray only much much louder, a metal helmeted head poked itself up above the gates high above them and then a call was yelled down into the inside of the gates before slowly they began to creak open though to Jay's surprise they weren't being opened by a mechanism but by two aliens on each side who were simply pushing them, he didn't want to even imagine just how strong these creatures truly were.
Once the gates were opened the group moved inside and the gates were pulled shut behind them before being secured with what looked to be a bronze bracing bar, though this was moved by a mechanism mounted high above the gates that looked like a giant winch that lifted it on both sides like a crane.
No sooner had they entered than Jay and Xao found themselves surrounded by a truly massive crowd of the curious aliens who had all come out to see the curious little captured alien creatures their soldiers had brought in, that's when Jay's eyes fell on what must have been the town chief and fuck if he'd thought the crimson knight was big this guy made her look fucking tiny, he had to be about eleven foot tall and was built like a brick shit house's roided up cousin.
He parted the crowd like a fucking icebreaking ship until he was stood right before them and the pair had to crane their necks to look up at him and that sent pain shooting right through jay's side and chest making him wince.
The leader was dressed in what looked like ceremonial armour that was a mixture of plate that was decorated in almost Celtic like designs and lots of dyed leather covered in thick looking chain mail, Jay didn't even want to even guess just how much it fucking weighed.
The crimson knight bowed as did all of the group and then the leader spoke in a voice so deep and gravely that it made jay's teeth chatter along with his bones, the knight answered and the leader leaned down to look at them appraisingly, he circled around them curiously and then he spoke to the knight again and she answered, he nodded seemingly happy with her answer then he pointed at each of the group individually and spoke before ending on the knight and seemingly giving her her orders.
She snapped into a quick salute and before either Jay or Xao could say a word they were led away but where were they going? Would they be thrown into prison, and would they try and interrogate them?
These and a million other questions swirled around inside his head as they were led through a crowd, he'd never felt so anxious in his life but all he could do was brace himself as right here right now he was powerless to fate's whim, he only hoped it would be kind to them this time.