Death’s Head

by David Gunn

  Her eyes flick to the empty wastes around us.

  “In battle,” I say. “It upsets people.”

  “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

  PEOPLE 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.

  Franc, Neen, and Shil understand. They look more nervous by the second, and if not for the walk back through the camp, I think they’d be fading into the darkness as discreetly as possible.

  “Is Colonel Nuevo here?”

  One of the guards rips his attention away from the smartly dressed lieutenant. He grins at the state of my uniform, and then remembers where he is. He nods, uncertain how to address me.

  “Would you tell him that Second Lieutenant Sven Tveskoeg is ready when he is.”

  “Sven…” The colonel is dressed for combat, full body armor and a helmet, with its visor tipped up. A pulse pistol sits in a holster on his hip. “Any chance of this working?”

  “Whatever it takes, sir,” I say. “That’s what we’ll do.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Where did you capture it, sir?”

  “In the woods.” He points toward a row of distant scrub. “One of our forward patrols…” He glances behind me and sees the others. “Who are these?”

  “My unit.”

  His gaze skims across the three troopers and he sighs. “Are those Death’s Head patches?”

  “Yes, sir…These men are auxiliaries.”

  He stares at me, eyes almost mild. “I didn’t know we had auxiliaries in this regiment, Sven. It must be new.”

  “Only in the section that talks to ferox, sir.”

  The colonel laughs. “Oh, fuck it,” he says. “Keep them.”

  I try not to wonder what would have happened to the troopers if he’d disapproved.

  I SEND SHIL and Franc for firewood, a case of incendiaries, and anything else that looks flammable. And then, as the guards step back, I show Neen how to pry the core from an incendiary shell and extract its ferric oxide, aluminum, and magnesium. As instructed, he shreds the mix over the sticks that the others are beginning to pile around the pod.

  Shil and Franc bring broken boxes, half a thorn bush, a crate of military-issue fire lighters—something I didn’t even know existed—and an old door complete with rusting handle, hinges, and wooden frame.

  “Where did you find that?”

  “A shack,” Franc says. “Behind the trees.”

  “Tear it apart,” I tell her.

  It’s not an order she likes. The farm is poor and badly positioned, working land that is obviously waterlogged for most of the year. Its shabbiness probably reminds Franc of home. All the same, she does what she’s told and does it efficiently, and that’s what matters.

  Shil rips apart a straw mattress and spreads its contents as kindling. A table and three chairs she stacks on one side for later.

  I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to give the ferox back its body heat, but I want the beast vaguely content before anything else happens. Always assuming its need for heat isn’t tied to a matching need for sunlight, because if it is the colonel’s plans are fucked and I’m going to be the one to tell him.

  “You,” I tell Shil. “Light it.”

  She comes forward and sets a flame to the straw.

  The powder from the incendiary flares brightly, and damp wood spits and hisses until it is dry enough to catch by itself. Another five minutes and I decide it must be getting warm inside the pod.


  “Open it,” I tell the guards.

  A dozen men with pulse rifles stand around the pod as a technician tries to work out how to unglue the pod without being burned. In the end I take his cutting tool, step across the flames, and cut the glue myself.

  “You ready?” I ask the riflemen.

  Their sergeant nods. “Yes, sir.”

  “Right, then this is how it works…I’ll hammer on the glass when I’m ready to leave. See me before that and the ferox is using me as a shield.”

  “They don’t have the intelligence,” says a voice. It’s the first sign in half an hour that we haven’t gotten rid of Lieutenant Uffingham.

  I ignore him.

  THE BEAST IS injured. A gash has been opened across its face, and blood is matted into the fur beneath its throat armor. Our fire has warmed the pod, but less than I’ve been expecting. Knocking several times on the wall, I lift the glass.

  “More heat.”

  Neen nods.

  As I duck back inside, Franc and Shil begin smashing up wooden chairs to throw onto the fire. A minute later the ferox turns its head and slowly focuses its eyes on my face.

  Lips draw back and the beast opens its mouth to reveal yellowing canines. One of them is broken, and human hair hangs from the jagged stump.

  “At least you’ve already eaten.”

  Dark eyes stare back.

  So I twist the handle of my laser knife and sear the back of my hand, trying not to wince. And as the pain fades, I catch a burst of aimless fear, tied to crippling cold and a desire for death.

  What? it asks.

  “Sven.”

  What Sven?

  “Sven lived with ferox.”

  The beast opens its eyes in disbelief, so I send it a memory of the caves and Youngster.

  The fire outside is raising the temperature in here close to desert heat. This wakes the ferox even further, although it also sets the animal’s wounds bleeding as warmth draws blood back to the surface. The pain, when it reaches me, practically knocks me back on my heels.

  Almost gone, it says.

  Remembering this isn’t Youngster, I resist the urge to nod and think Yes instead. The beast, indeed, is almost gone.

  Snakeskull did this.

  “What?”

  Got sick.