The khiladri joined them several days out from Manorest.

Their course took them in a gradual curve west as they advanced, following the boundary between poisoned forest and barren plains. Though the trees would have been the more direct route, clambering through that tangled webs of roots and branches would have slowed them down too much.

Their path also took them in the direction of the mountains where Rial had lived for so long. They were suddenly there one morning when Tala woke, the clouds clearing to reveal peaks towering into the sky on the horizon. She had never seen anything so high.

The first khiladri appeared that same day, emerging from the ever-nearing hills as dusk approached. Tala didn't see where it came from; one minute they were alone, the next they were not. It walked off to their left, slightly behind as if guarding them.

"Not guarding; marking," said Rial when she spoke her thoughts to him. "There will be others around us, watching to see where we go. They are wary; they know me, but not you. My presence should be enough to keep you safe."

"Should be?" replied Tala. She didn't like the uncertainty in his tone.

"You can't ever say for sure what the pack will do" he said, watching the silver creature as it loped alongside them. "But it generally leaves me alone when I have others with me. It has experienced what Mead can do."

Tala glanced down in surprise at the pack hanging from his shoulder in which the weapon was held.

"You've used Mead on the khiladri?" she asked.

"I told you, you can't prejudge them. They are wild, and wild animals work to a different set of considerations to humans. There have been times..." and here Rial stared off into memory, "...when I have had to protect myself."

"There are currently 36 pack animals in formation around us," chimed in Mead.

It didn't escape Tala's notice that the khiladri to their side halted for a brief second, front paw held aloft and eyes narrowing, fixing on the bag from which the voice emanated.

Thirty-six of them? When she had seen only one? The vegetation around them here wasn't even that thick. The mossy wastes had gradually been replaced with threadbare grassland, running ahead towards the hills that remained a deep green she hadn't seen for years. Only scattered crimson patches spoke of the corruption within. There were even small, living flowers, though sickly-looking. Where were the khiladri? Could they really hide so well?

Apparently so. A low growl drew her attention forward and where there had been only ragged grass and a sloping curve so gradual it could surely conceal nothing was suddenly another of the silver creatures, a large one with teeth bared and spine arched. It too was staring at where Mead hung, but when Tala looked towards it its gaze swung to focus on her. The growl grew stronger.

Her footsteps slowed with Rial's.

"Hmm..." he said. If he was worried his voice did not betray it. "They either really don't like you, or something else is going on. No idea what it could be, though. Khiladri don't usually threaten; it's much easier for them to attack and kill. It took me a long time to understand that only special situations change this."

His pace halted altogether and he looked around. The khiladri to their side halted in unison.

Tala watched as the man raised his head to the sky. It was as if he was not only using his eyes but all his senses to search, listening and sniffing for a hint of anything out of the ordinary.

"It helps if you know how your surroundings should be," he said in explanation as his head dropped back down.

I know that, thought Tala, but she didn't say anything. Rial had lived out here for decades, and this was his territory now. She would watch, and learn.

"Of course, sometimes I don't know why I bother," he continued, shrugging the bag off his shoulder and opening it to take out the contents.

Mead rested in his hands, curiously unreflective in the evening light.

"Mead, tell me of anything unusual happening within say, 50 kilometres of this spot. And no games," Rial said down at the machine.

In the pause that followed Tala looked up to the khiladri in front. It seemed no more relaxed, and the low rumble continued from its throat.

She blinked at the tingling sensation she was learning to associate with Mead and its 'scans'.

"As I have assured you many times, I do not play games," it said.

"Stop it, Mead. Tell me what I want to know."

Despite the tension Tala had to grin at the irritation in Rial's voice.

"Through analysis of the previous conversation and patterns of preference recorded for the current user, it is likely that 'what you want to know' is the existence of a group comprising 13 individuals approximately 17.2 kilometres west of here. The presence of a number of khiladri carcasses surrounding them suggests they have recently been in conflict with the creatures,” Mead answered.

Tala had noticed that the machine could be extremely curt when it wanted to, and at times such as here almost sarcastic. When this was put to the machine, however, it insisted this was not possible. Either way, this manner of speech seemed to be one of the few things that could vex Rial. He let out a low growl of annoyance.

“How many carcasses?” snapped Rial.

“At least 20. They are in various states of dismemberment and it is difficult to verify the exact number at this distance.”

Rial’s inward hiss told Tala he was feeling more than just surprise. This news genuinely distressed him. He looked up at Tala.

“Twenty? What can possibly kill twenty khiladri?” he said.

It felt like he was searching for an answer, though he must have known she had none.

“No idea,” she said bluntly. “But I’d like to find out.”

They trekked on in silence for the next few hours. Dusk came and passed into night but Rial gave no sign of stopping, and Tala forced herself to continue with him despite every fibre of her being screaming to find a secure place to take shelter from the night.

Against all common sense the night grew brighter as time passed, the moon slowly rising over the mountains to illuminate their path. It didn't matter; Tala could tell that even in pitch darkness Rial knew the way. She, on the other hand, twitched at every flash of violet eyes that glinted in the blackness, far more than belonged to the two khiladri she had seen.

Some of those eyes were human, or at least once had been so.

They eventually camped within the forest towards morning, when Mead informed them they were 4 kilometres from the group's location. In the time it had taken them to get here several of the group had split off, leaving 10 behind. Those who had left headed west, news which made Rial obviously tense. He woke her after only a few hours’ sleep. The khiladri were gone.

They crept up on their quarry as quietly as possible, staying within the protection of the trees to hide themselves from the possibility of watchful eyes, and were glad they had done once they spotted those they were hunting. And a hunt it had indeed become.

The men's camp was set up compactly on the grassland with a man stood guard at each of the four corners. They held rifles of a shape Tala had never seen, made from some deep black metal that drank in any sunlight that fell on them.

The rest of the men were gathered around a large fire that burnt thick and heavy with smoke, wafting in all directions to smother everything in a choking haze. Over the fire hung what Tala was shocked to realise were khiladri pelts, as well as what must be a bralla skin, thick armour plating dripping sticky drops of blood onto the flames beneath. She had thought those extinct.

"Those rifles," whispered Rial from where he crouched amongst the leaves besides her. "They're far too advanced. They shouldn't have them."

Tala looked from Rial to the weapon held gripped in one hand. Ask that.

"Mead, what are those weapons? Where did they get them? Include Tala in the channel," said Rial.

Class-22 high voltage coilguns, or gauss rifles, though technically not a rifle due to the lack of helical groove and thus spin once the ammunition is expelled from the central chamber. They were first used in the lanthanide wars by neocapitalist forces based out of...

Mead's voice rang in her head as if the machine was speaking aloud, yet she was certain the sound was not emanating from outside. Mead was somehow bypassing her ears entirely, a strange rattle accompanying every word.

"Mead, stop," said Rial, looking apologetically up at her. "Sorry, I should have explained. Mead can stimulate the tympanic membrane directly. It's a weird feeling. He..."

Tala waved Rial quiet. From his reaction she must have looked more scared than she would like to admit.

"What were the 'lanthanide' wars?" she asked quietly, as coolly as possible.

Unknown.

Rial shrugged apologetically and spoke to the machine again.

"Concentrate on my second question. Where did they get them?"

Unknown. Unusually, the weapons have been stealthed from my sensors and as such I can detect them only through more basic methods. Still, they pose no threat to my owner nor those I am assigned to protect.

"Mead, you know where they got them. Postulate, infer, do... whatever it is you do," said Rial through gritted teeth.

It was only now that Tala realised Rial already knew as well. He was merely waiting for someone else to say it.

"They got them from your ship," she said, speaking the thought as it formed.

Likely, came the strange buzzing of Mead's voice in her head. An undiscovered armoury aboard or nearby, one deliberately hidden from advanced scanners such as my own.

"There's no way they could have been built?" Tala asked. She wanted to consider all possibilities.

No. Considering the level of technological development and the extreme lack of metal ores available on this planet, two factors that are causally intertwined, these weapons can only have arrived here in the same manner as myself.

"So what do we do? Mead can handle anything they have, right?" she said, looking up at Rial.

"Of course, but we need to conserve charge as much as possible," he replied. "There's another one of Mead out there, and that's a far greater danger."

Tala felt a shiver run up her spine, but she felt her resolve harden at the same time.

"Right, here's what we do first. We need information; more than Mead can give us. That means we need one of them..."