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A Forbidden Meal – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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A FORBIDDEN MEAL

Carrie Harris

‘The aut’vakka call us savages,’ said Skeith.

The kill-broker descended the ramp, clicking his beak in amusement. Behind him, the Pinnacle hissed, emitting a cloud of acrid smoke as its plasma drive cooled. K’bakt mining colony had a minimal voidport, with two ill-repaired docking yards and a single void elevator leading to the planet’s surface. The place failed to inspire confidence. The dockyard dome that held back the yawning emptiness of the void was pitted and rimed with rust. There would be no menials on call to supply the Pinnacle for its outgoing flight, or to attend to the numerous maintenance tasks and safety checks required before departure, but no self-respecting kroot would trust an aut’vakka any more than the aut’vakka trusted them.

‘Savages? That is a compliment,’ said Re’at, hopping down the ramp to join him. ‘Savagery ensures survival.’

‘Not to them. They refuse to admit the truth of things. To do so would be to face their weakness.’

Skeith snapped his beak in agitation, looking up the ramp once more. But Crewk was nowhere in sight. The cold-blood left him with the most distasteful duties once again. It took all of his willpower to hide his displeasure. Luckily, Re’at assumed his ill temper was directed at the aut’vakka.

‘That is foolish,’ she scoffed.

‘And now you understand the aut’vakka. They cling to their illusions of civility despite its uselessness.’

‘I could shoot them,’ offered Re’at.

Skeith gave the fledgling long-sight an appraising once-over. Re’at had not yet learned to hide her emotions. Her head quills lay flat against her head, a sure sign of anger. She tapped pointed claws on the barrel of her rifle, itching to put the weapon to its intended use.

‘They would not be worth chewing,’ said Skeith. ‘We will complete our mission here, resupply, and continue on to Fort Pykman, as Akh planned. May his soul soar among the skies.’

‘May he fly free among the beloved of Vawk,’ intoned Re’at, lifting her eyes to the heavens.

Akh had died fighting orks on Arkunasha, but Skeith suspected that the knife in the back that had ended their leader’s hunt had not been wielded by enemy hands. His quills had been up around Crewk ever since, although he had no evidence. For the moment, the two shared leadership of the kinband. A challenge would come, if Skeith was lucky. In the meantime, he watched for knives.

The elevator door slid open with a screech of pained metal, revealing a pair of aut’vakka in uniform: a rotund male followed by a thin and jittery female. They chose not to acknowledge their visitors. Their soft lips twisted as they muttered to each other, eyes rolling above fat, pillowed cheeks. The behaviour was intended as an insult, and Re’at felt it. She bristled, her quills rustling in irritation. But Skeith felt nothing but an intense satisfaction. Even after years of hiring kroot mercenaries, the humans didn’t understand what they were dealing with.

Just as intended.

‘Keep watch,’ ordered Skeith. ‘I will speak with them.’

‘Say the word, and I will split their naked foreheads with my rifle,’ said Re’at, caressing the weapon. ‘I would enjoy it.’

Skeith trilled, the sound of amusement originating from deep in his throat despite all that had gone wrong. Re’at had fed well, claiming the choicest pieces of fierce predators by right of first kill, and as a result had developed a particularly fierce aggression. She meant every word.

As he loped towards the humans, the female quivered, her scent turning sour with nerves. She had no power here, so Skeith paid her no mind. The only aut’vakka who mattered was the one who had hired them: Chief Administrator Belv, with his soft belly and sagging jowls.

He gave the kroot a long, calculating glance, fingering the gaudy chain of office that hung over his robes. He did not look like a man who had done much mining. In fact, his bloodshot eyes suggested he rarely lifted anything heavier than a bottle of the alcoholic spirit that humans enjoyed. Nervous heat poured from his body, coating him in a choking miasma of sweat.

Yet he had the gall to look down on Skeith. Sometimes, the kroot tried to understand how the aut’vakka saw him. They looked at scars and tribal markings earned with blood and strength and saw only barbarism. They shuddered at skwab beetles carried in cages dangling from belts and bandoliers, seeing only vermin instead of repositories of genetic information. They drew back in disgust from the sacred consumption of flesh, dismissing it with a human word that had no counterpart in the kroot language: cannibal. Skeith had studied this word, and he still marvelled at it. It lumped all consumers of sentient flesh into one group, with no consideration for motivation. It was a term born from blindness, a blindness that would someday spell the aut’vakka’s doom.

‘I suppose it is too much to ask for you xenos to clean up before presenting yourselves to me,’ said the chief administrator in haughty Gothic.

‘Is that dead flesh?’ added the lackey, her voice high with fear.

Skeith glanced down to see a piece of gristle hanging from his weapons belt, a leftover from his hurried lunch. He flicked it free with his long, hooked nails. He trilled again, but of course the humans hadn’t bothered to learn the kroot language, nor any of their mannerisms. The young woman stepped back as the gory morsel fell just short of the toes of her boots, eyes wide.

‘You eat meat, do you not?’ Skeith asked. ‘We are the same.’

‘We are no such thing, alien. Where are the rest of your… personnel? I thought we hired a whole pack of you,’ said Belv.

‘We did,’ piped in the lackey. ‘I have the records here.’

‘My kinband tend to our ship. I will hear your reports myself.’

‘I suppose that’s better,’ muttered Belv. ‘Fewer of you barbaric lot to sully my offices. Come, then. I will show you what needs to be done.’

‘I am at your service,’ said Skeith, thinking about how the fat man’s fleshy jowls would taste. But he discarded the thought as soon as it arose. The meal wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

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