The sight of the nest, a grisly collage of bone and scrap, sent a wave of cold dread through them that had nothing to do with the wind whipping across the rooftop. They were trespassers in a predator's territory.
"Back," Kai hissed, pulling Elara and Ben with him. They scrambled back behind the rooftop access building, their hearts hammering against their ribs. The relative safety of the solid wall felt laughably inadequate against a threat that could attack from the sky.
"Harriers," Elara breathed, her eyes wide. "We saw them circling the first day. This is their nesting ground."
"A strategically indefensible position," Ben stated, his voice a low, clinical tremor. He risked a peek around the corner, his silver-lit eyes narrowed, his new Insight skill flaring to life. He wasn't just looking at a nest; he was dissecting it, analyzing every piece of grim evidence.
"The boot is industrial-grade leather, a construction worker's, perhaps," he murmured, his mind processing the data. "Torn, not cut. The Scuttler carapace has been shattered by a single, high-velocity impact, likely a diving attack. The metallic scraps in the nest... notice the pattern of the dents? They're bent inward, a clamping pressure. Their talons must be incredibly powerful."
He pulled back, his face pale but his eyes burning with a feverish intensity. "Their hunting pattern is efficient. They drop onto their prey from a significant altitude, using gravity to amplify their strike force. The victims would likely never see it coming. They are ambush predators of the highest order."
"So we can't let them see us," Kai concluded, the grim reality of their situation settling in. "We're out in the open up here."
The path forward was a treacherous, exposed gauntlet. The next building in their path, a squat, flat-roofed administrative building, was a fifty-yard dash across the open rooftop they were currently on, right past the nest. There was no cover.
"We have to go back," Elara whispered, her hand instinctively going to the hilt of one of her sabers. "We can find another way."
"To where?" Kai countered, his voice low and steady. "Back to the quad with the Collectors? Back into the tunnels with the Crawlers? There is no 'other way.' This is the path. We knew it was going to be dangerous."
He looked from his sister's terrified face to Ben's analytical one. This was his first real test as a leader since they had become a proper team. He had to make the call.
"Ben, you said they attack from above, from a blind spot," Kai said, his mind locking onto the tactical data. "That means if we can see them, we're not their primary target. They won't attack a target that's aware of them unless they're desperate."
"A logical, if untested, hypothesis," Ben agreed cautiously.
"Then that's how we move," Kai decided, a plan forming. "We don't sneak. We don't run. We walk. Together. A tight group. Our eyes on the sky. We show them that we see them. We make ourselves look like a hard target, not easy prey."
It was a gamble, a piece of psychological warfare against a monster they had never even seen up close.
"You're crazy," Elara said, but there was a flicker of admiration in her eyes.
"It's the only plan we've got," Kai said, his gaze firm. "We move to that next roof, and we don't stop until we're under cover. Stay close. Keep your weapons ready."
He took a deep breath, the cold, ashen air filling his lungs. He gave his team one last, determined look, then stepped out from behind the cover of the access building. He raised his shield, not in a defensive posture, but as if to catch the light, a clear signal to anything watching from above.
Elara came to his right, her twin sabers drawn, her head tilted back, her eyes scanning the hazy, gray expanse of the sky. Ben took his left, a rock hammer clutched in his hand, his own gaze fixed upwards.
Together, a small, defiant triangle of humanity, they began their slow, deliberate walk across the Harrier's hunting ground. Every gust of wind sounded like the rush of leathery wings. Every shadow that flickered across the tar seemed like a diving predator. The silence from the sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of anticipation.
They were halfway across the open roof when a shadow, large and swift, fell over them. It wasn't a cloud. It was huge, blotting out the weak light for a fraction of a second before it was gone.
A high-pitched, piercing shriek, like a bird of prey's cry mixed with tearing metal, echoed from the clouds above.
They had been seen.