Death's Head (22 page)

“That why you killed Corporal Haven?”

A memory of an NCO with his legs smashed enters my mind.
Only happened this morning,
I remind myself, although it feels much longer ago. Can’t remember killing him, but that probably means nothing.

“Help me up.”

She struggles with my weight but gets me standing. My hip is better than I deserve, although it hurts and blood has filled my boots. My uniform is shredded down one side. If I were still in the legion I’d be carrying thread, a needle, a knife, and wind-dried meat, our basic survival pack. As it is, I’ve got my laser blade, throwing spikes, cracked bones in my leg, and a gun I’m going to need to find.

Looking at Shil it’s easy to understand my earlier mistake. She’s not bald like Franc, but her head’s been cropped back to her skull and her uniform is a baggy mess of cheap cloth with too many pockets, patches, and fasteners, all guaranteed to fill with water every time it rains. She looks like any other grunt.

“Got a needle and cotton in one of those pockets?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How are your nerves?”

“They’re fine.”

She’s insulted, which is good, but she needs to learn not to let it show.
“They’re fine, sir.”

“My nerves are fine, sir.”

“Good, then fix my leg.”

My injuries will heal faster if the wound’s sewn shut, and it gives Shil something to do while my bones knit enough for me to go find my gun. And if that doesn’t given me long enough, there’s always the alligator for her to skin and joint.

“Not too bad,” I say when the job’s done.

In the end I skin the creature myself while Shil mends my trousers. The beast has no bones, though it possesses a leathery hide, strange teeth, and plates of something white and slimy where its skeleton should be. What look like feet turn out to be shrunken fins.

Throwing its innards, rudimentary lungs, and most of its skin into the marsh, I remove its head by cutting deeper into the wound I slashed across its throat, discard the last bit of its tail, and climb back into my newly mended uniform.

“Hold this.”

The scrap of skin Shil takes is slimy enough to justify her disgust.

“Taste it,” I say.

She stares at me, realizing that I’m serious and that things are going to get ugly if she doesn’t do what she’s told. So she does. She even manages not to wipe her lips afterward.

“Disgust gets you killed,” I tell her. “Before this is over you’ll be eating food that would now make you vomit. Understand me?”

I hold her gaze until she nods, then hold it some more.

“Yes, sir.” “Good. Now go find my gun.”

WITH THE ALLIGATOR
slung over my shoulder and the gun at my hip, I power up a fat-wheel and wait for Shil to do the same. We need to find the crashed batwing before we can head back. All I know is that the machine went down between where we killed the alligator and our camp. My best hope is that the bog hasn’t taken it already.

Water splashes from our wheels and a sour stink fills the night air around me. Shil stays close and I realize she’s frightened by the dancing flames of marsh gas around us.

“It’s not magic,” I tell her.

She makes a sign against the evil eye anyway.

CHAPTER 28

P
EOPLE WERE
looking for you,” says Neen before I’ve even had time to unload the creature’s carcass. The trooper looks cowed and nervous, not the proud young sergeant I left behind.

“Which people?” I ask, tossing the alligator onto the fire. My plans to joint, hang, and wash the beast first have just been discarded.

“A lieutenant…”

“Death’s Head?”

Neen nods, carefully not meeting my eyes.

“Not your problem,” I tell him.

“He wants you to report immediately. There’s an HQ set up toward the middle of the camp. You’re expected.”

No one else is meeting my eyes, either. Whatever has been said, they’re upset. I take the square of skin from Shil and give it to Franc. “Got a knife?”

She nods.

“Cut four death’s heads from this and sew them onto the sleeves of your uniforms. As of now, you’re auxiliaries. And there’s only one rule,
Whatever it takes, that’s what we do…
Cut off all other badges. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“And you.”

Shil looks at me.

“Dump the batwing chip in water in case it’s still alive, and then help Franc to sew the patches…Your sister’s good with a needle,” I add, glancing at Neen. “She fixed my leg.”

“He got bitten,” says Shil. “By a monster.”

They all look from the fire to my leg and back again.

“Hack off the meat as it cooks,” I tell them. “Offer it around. There’s more on that thing than any of us can eat.”

“We could save it,” says Franc, adding, “sir.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “We could. Or I could just go kill something else tomorrow.”

Since the kyp began taking its share of what I eat and drink everything tastes sour to me, but I leave Neen and his group by the fire feeling happier than when I found them. Anyway, armies fight better for being properly fed.

About twenty paces into the half darkness, in the shadow between two tents, I pass a tall and smartly dressed lieutenant coming in the other direction. He’s marching toward our fire with something close to anger on his face.

“If you’re looking for me, I’m here.”

The lieutenant swings back, his eyes taking in the slime on my uniform and the fact that I’m limping, although less badly than five minutes earlier.

“You’re Second Lieutenant Tveskoeg?”

“Got a problem with that?”

He stares at me from a great height, the only problem being he’s shorter than me and not used to meeting men twice his width. “You should know,” he tells me, “that I outrank you.”

“And you should know I don’t give a fuck.”

Someone laughs, and we both realize that the tents on both sides of us are listening. His face tightens and he wheels around without another word. I leave it just long enough to make him nervous and then follow.

“TVESKOEG.”
The voice is warm, amused. “I’m Captain Roccaforte. Come in. We’re all dying to meet you.” The captain is immaculately dressed, and his feet rest on a leather stool. I double-check that his chair really is sitting on an ornate and probably priceless rug. It is.

“You look a mess.”

“Been killing things,” I tell him.

The others are watching with interest. All that telling Neen and Shil to use
sir,
and I’ve forgotten to do it myself.

“What things?”

“Long, ugly bastard. Eight feet long and a big mouth.” I point to the newly mended rip in my uniform. “We’re eating it at the moment. Well, my men are. I’m here, obviously.”

The captain smiles. “Your men,” he says, then nods to the lieutenant who came to collect me. “Miles mentioned them. I didn’t think we gave you any men.”

“I found them. Their sergeant got killed and then their corporal; they lost half their troop and needed commanding.” I look at him. “I’d like to keep them. They’ve got the makings of a good unit.”

Someone snorts, and I glare into the darkness.

“We took out a belt-fed,” I say. “Used it to take down a plasma cannon. Killed a few batwings, too…”

“That was you?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “That was us. I’m co-opting them.”

The captain looks interested and I’m glad he doesn’t ask me what
co-opting
means, because I don’t know. It’s a word the legion use to describe the tribes who take guns and flags and silver in return for fighting the ferox.

“What does co-opting them involve?”

“I’ve told them to make Death’s Head shoulder patches.”

Someone protests, and the captain silences them. “From what?”

“Ugly bastard skin.”

“Who’s doing it?”

“Two of the women. One of them helped hunt the beast.”

Captain Roccaforte starts. “You’ve co-opted women into the Death’s Head?” He’s looking at me slightly strangely.

“They’re auxiliaries,” I say, using another legion word. “I’m Death’s Head; they just owe me their allegiance.”

The captain nods, apparently satisfied. “This beast of yours, how big was it again?”

“About the same size as me. But a lot uglier.”

Behind us someone laughs and comes out of a tent. It’s Major Silva, who seems to have acquired a pair of spectacles, much like those worn by Colonel Nuevo. They’re reflecting in the firelight.

“
Dylidae lagarto,
” he says. “Deadly creatures.”

“This one was half asleep,” I say, adding, “sir.”

“I’m sure it was,” says the major. “Probably dying of old age like that ferox you killed.”

A couple of Death’s Head officers glance at each other. The smartly dressed lieutenant gets slightly less arrogant. The major’s telling them I might dress like shit but I also come with a health warning.

“We’ve got a job for you.”

I wait.

“Something unexpected.”

He wants me to ask, and it seems rude to refuse. “Unexpected, sir?”

“We’ve captured a ferox.”

“Fuck,” I say without thinking. “It must be half dead with cold.” It’s a weird metabolism the ferox have, one that needs heat and cold in equal measure. Without both the beasts die. “Where’s it being held?”

“In a pod. We’ve glue-gunned the lid shut. I’ll have Miles take you there.”

“I need to go back to my tent first.”

The major raises one eyebrow. He really does.

“You need me to question the beast, sir?”

“If you can…”

I knew of his doubts. Sergeant Hito, back on the mother ship, was open about the major’s belief that I’d been hallucinating.

“Then I have to go back to my tent. There are things I need.”

At the camp I collect up the others, already wearing their new shoulder patches, their fingers greasy with meat from what’s left of the alligator, which is a lot less than I expect.

“We shared it,” Franc says.

“Good,” I tell her.

In the bottom of my roll are my Death’s Head dagger and my throwing spikes, where I left them. I’m going to need both, although not in the way those watching think.

“Let’s go,” I say.

“My orders are to take
you.
”

“And I’m going.”

Lieutenant Uffingham doesn’t like this answer. “No one said anything about my taking them.”

“You’re not,” I say. “I am. If you don’t like it, we can always wait while you take the problem to Major Silva.” Now the lieutenant really hates me, which is too bad, because I’m not after his job or his seniority.

I don’t even know what his job is.

He walks ahead, which is fine. The others trail behind me. We’re moving into parts of the camp where only my presence and the smartness of the lieutenant gives them leave to enter. The fires are bigger, the tents more elaborate, and I can smell food that didn’t come out of a foil pack or from the marshes. Someone clinks glasses in a tent behind us, toasting victory in a voice that sounds like it believes what it says.

“You,” I say to Haze. “Find a generator and get this recharged.”

He takes the SIG nervously, holding it between two fingers as I unbuckle my belt and hand him both belt and holster.

“What if they won’t let me?”

“Then take my name in vain. If that doesn’t work, take the major’s name in vain. And if that still doesn’t work, say it’s on direct orders from the colonel.”

Now he looks more nervous than ever.

“Just do it.”

The trooper vanishes into the night, a slightly larger-than-average shadow trying not to trip over his own feet.

Guards halt us as we approach a pod ringed with razor wire.

“Lieutenant Miles Uffingham.”

The men salute while failing to move out of the way.

“On Major Silva’s orders,” says the lieutenant.

Both guards stay where they are. I’m beginning to enjoy this. Also, I’m one step ahead of Lieutenant Uffingham. The only reason guards ever fail to acknowledge a rank is that they’re already acting on the orders of one more senior. Maybe you need time as a bottom feeder to know how these things work.