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By Root 1973 0

breath was laboured. She hugged the young one close in a last feeble attempt to protect it. Then the life force seeped away. She slowly pitched to one side and sprawled lifeless across the floor. The hatchling spilled from her arms and began to bleat.

Having no further interest in the matter, Stryke stepped over the corpse.

He was facing a Uni altar. In common with others he’d seen it was quite plain: a high table covered by a white cloth, gold-embroidered at the edges, with a lead candleholder at each end. Standing in the centre and to the rear was a piece of ironwork he knew to be the symbol of their cult. It consisted of two rods of black metal mounted on a base, fused together at an angle to form a simple X.

But it was the object at the front of the table that interested him. A cylinder, perhaps as long as his forearm and the size of his fist in circumference, it was copper-coloured and inscribed with fading runic symbols. One end had a lid, neatly sealed with red wax.

Coilla and Jup came to him. She was dabbing at the wound on her arm with a handful of wadding. Jup wiped red stains from his blade with a soiled rag. They stared at the cylinder.

Coilla said, “Is that it, Stryke?”

“Yes. It fits her description.”

“Hardly looks worth the cost of so many lives,” Jup remarked.

Stryke reached for the cylinder and examined it briefly before slipping it into his belt. “I’m just a humble captain. Naturally our mistress didn’t explain the details to one so lowly.” His tone was cynical.

Coilla frowned. “I don’t understand why that last creature should throw its life away protecting a female and her offspring.”

“What sense is there in anything humans do?” Stryke replied. “They lack the balanced approach we orcs enjoy.”

The cries of the baby rose to a more incessant pitch.

Stryke turned to look at it. His green, viperish tongue flicked over mottled lips. “Are the rest of you as hungry as I am?” he wondered.

His jest broke the tension. They laughed.

“It’d be exactly what they’d expect of us,” Coilla said, reaching down and hoisting the infant by the scruff of its neck. Holding it aloft in one hand, level with her face, she stared at its streaming blue eyes and dimpled, plump cheeks. “My gods, but these things are ugly.”

“You can say that again,” Stryke agreed.