Death’s Head

by David Gunn

  “We surrender,” I tell Captain Mye, showing him the paper.

  “I heard…”

  “A shot, yes. Colonel Nuevo has taken his own life.” I shrug, as callously as possible. “Only to be expected in the circumstances.”

  “General Jaxx will require a second witness,” says the captain, reaching around me for the door handle.

  “Sir,” I say.

  He’s halfway into the vault when he realizes what he sees. Captain Mye tries to turn back, but I’m one step ahead.

  It takes death to wipe the shock from his face.

  After wrapping the captain’s hand around the grip of Colonel Nuevo’s gun, I thread his finger through the trigger guard.

  It looks like suicide to me.

  ON HEARING COLONEL Nuevo’s decision, Five-braid Ison gives us until the following dawn to prepare our surrender. I reckon she needs that long to round up a decent collection of lenz, observers, and U/Free data collectors.

  Her demands are simple: We will surrender. All weapons will be given up. Any shot fired in anger will be regarded as having been fired by all. The Death’s Head are to abandon Ilseville as individuals. No marching and no massed ranks. The galaxy will see a shambling defeated mass, stumbling gratefully toward captivity.

  In the hours that remain I disband the Aux and give each a handful of coins taken from Colonel Nuevo’s strong room. My final order is simple: They will destroy their alligator-skin patches.

  They are local militia, pressed into service by me. Their gratitude at being rescued by the Enlightened knows no bounds.

  A hundred scores are settled that night. A group of militia trap three Death’s Head in an alley, kicking two of them to death. If they’d killed all three they might have gotten away with it. But five Death’s Head walk into the militia camp less than an hour later and gun down a dozen soldiers in revenge.

  The first night in a month that the enemy aren’t trying to kill us, and we’re busy killing ourselves. Tomorrow we surrender, without honor, without being allowed to retain our weapons, and with helmets held in our hands as we leave the city.

  News grabs of Ilseville’s fall will spread everywhere.

  The U/Free already know. Their observer general left the inner city this afternoon, given safe passage and an honor guard by the Enlightened. They’re playing it safe, the Uplifted; showing how civilized they can be. All those rumors of mass slaughter and cities burned are lies, obviously. Look at us, their actions say. How can you compare us to the Death’s Head? In what way are we like OctoV?

  In the meantime we are destroying ourselves in a frenzy of fear, hatred, and retribution, and you can bet the U/Free know that, too.

  When the time comes, I go join the defeated.

  I give Franc my dagger. My gun I leave with Haze.

  CHAPTER 46

  FIVE-BRAID ISON flies out half an hour after we surrender. Before she goes, Ison makes a speech for the gathered lenz about inviolable borders, territorial integrity, and what happens to people who underestimate the Uplifted. The speech is addressed to OctoV; at least that’s what she says, although it sounds more like it is addressed to the U/Free to me.

  And then, with Ison gone, we’re herded into a column and told we’re to march south, toward the harbor at Mica and waiting transport. This is where we’ve been heading ever since.

  Anger keeps me from stumbling. Anger and common sense, self-preservation and pride. Our column’s been on the road for five days now, marching into sleet and a poor pretense for snow, as if chasing the last echoes of winter. The sick and the wounded, the starving and the weak fall daily, shot through the head or trampled under the unthinking boots of those behind.

  “Move,” I snarl at the woman beside me.

  Dragging my boots, I force one foot in front of the other and keep walking through the mud, despite the fact I’m supporting the redheaded sniper, although almost carrying probably describes it better.

  Who knows what her name is? She fell fifteen minutes ago. So a Silver Fist officer upended her, raised her buttocks into the air, and took her at the roadside, putting his pistol to the back of her skull before he’d even withdrawn.

  And then he caught me watching.

  “You going to carry her?”

  Stupidity made me say, “Yes.”

  So now I’m carrying a sobbing woman who wants to know why I didn’t just let the bastard kill her.

  We sleep beside a ditch, tentless and without food, while our Silver Fist friend inflates a bubble tent and eats self-heating ration packs. Uplift rations are probably as vile as our own, but hunger gnaws at my guts like a fox and I’d eat pretty much anything.

  “Fuck off,” says the sniper.

  So I do, all of ten paces.

  This takes me to the very edge of the laser fencing. There’s no real reason for the corral the Silver Fist construct, because we’re too shattered to think about escaping, and there’s nowhere for us to go anyway.

  The silence is what gets me.

  Guns and rockets, mortar rounds and snatches of small-arms fire have become so much a soundtrack to my life that their absence shocks me more than any noise. Only when some guard shoots a straggler does my day feel vaguely normal. When I mention this to the sniper she stares at me strangely. This may be why she won’t look at me anymore.

  We stink, all of us.

  Shit, sweat, death, and defeat, who knew they smelled so similar?

  I miss my gun and its arrogance. We do what we do, we do it well, and no one else comes close. Maybe its arrogance merely matches my own.

  The next day the sniper walks for an hour almost unaided, and then tries to sit. Hooking my arm under hers, I drag her to her feet and make her keep walking. Her punches are so weak they don’t even bruise me. Around this time I remember to ask her name. Rachel.

  “Well, fucking walk,” I tell Rachel.

  Anger’s good. It gets her through to the evening.

  Mornings turn to afternoons and get swallowed by the night. But the successive nights do little to dampen Rachel’s misery. One time, a couple of guards come by with flashlights in their hands and rape on their minds. A single look at the state of her is enough to make them go elsewhere.

  Come dawn, there’s another woman crying and a man dead, his head smashed and blood crusting his mouth. A boy offers to help bury him, but we move off before the job is done.

  Anyone else would have dropped Rachel by now, and I know the Silver Fist are placing bets on how long I can keep going. Most of them have already lost, which probably explains the viciousness of their passing kicks.

  Night comes around again, the eighth…at least I think it’s the eighth. Tents go up and the enemy eat, leaving only a handful of guards to erect the laser fencing that keeps us secure. Our hunger makes their job easier by the day.

  “Get up,” I tell Rachel when dawn arrives.

  “Piss off.”

  I slap her so hard I have to carry her for the rest of that day, although she regains consciousness around noon. The Silver Fist who are still in on the bet think it’s hilarious.

  Personally, I hope to see them all dead.

  The next morning is much the same. I want Rachel to get up; she wants me to fuck off and die…Sheer obstinacy stops me from leaving her. Rachel’s alive and she’s bloody well going to stay that way.

  “Stand,” I say, twisting my fingers into her hair.

  Shadows shift behind me, and I turn expecting to see a guard. Only it’s someone else entirely.

  “Hi,” says Shil. “Still relying on your charm?”

  Having sworn loudly enough to make a Silver Fist look around, I stamp my anger into silence and take a deep breath, then another.

  “All right,” says Shil. “You’ve made your point. You’re really fucking pleased to see me.”

  “I told you to stay behind.”

  “No. You said I wasn’t Aux, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So,” she says. “Who the fuck are yo
u to tell me what to do anyway?” She glares past me to where Rachel sits. “Do you want help with her or not?”

  Around us the defeated are picking up their packs, struggling into sodden boots and forcing themselves to their feet. A few are glaring in undisguised hatred at the Silver Fist, but most are too hollow-eyed to care.

  “As long as it doesn’t void their bet,” I say.

  Shil looks at me strangely. “You’ve been close to dropping her,” she says, “for a couple of days now.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  Hoisting Rachel between us, we set off in silence along a track that barely qualifies as a road, and as the sun reaches the high point of its journey—roughly as high as a tree on the horizon, had any trees been able to grow in this wilderness—right around then Neen and Franc appear behind us, position themselves on either side of Rachel, and release us from her burden.

  “Fantastic,” I say. “Don’t tell me…”

  “Yeah,” says Neen. “Good to see you, too.”

  He’s taller than I remember, even thinner. His shaggy mop has been cropped to the skull and he’s back in uniform, complete with Death’s Head patch made from alligator skin. So are the others, I realize, even Maria. Only Haze wears militia uniform, with a fat cap pulled down tight over his ears.

  “How are you handling the…”

  He glares at me, almost tripping over his feet as he turns his attention from the road. “By not thinking about it.”

  Our column is now a third of the length it was when it set out from Ilseville. No lenz line this road to record us. Our surrender was news; our march to the coast at Mica is a given. At most a few families turn out from their farms to watch us pass. They look like everyone else on this planet: badly dressed, damp, and cold.

  A woman gives Franc soup and is sworn at by a guard.

  She swears back and three men from her village suddenly appear behind her, which is interesting. The Uplifted might hold this planet, but it seems they still have hearts and minds to gather in.

  Sipping from the cup, Franc smiles her thanks. When I look again, she’s given the cup to Haze.

  That night we make a fire from scraps of wood and huddle around it while Rachel tells her story. It’s depressingly familiar. A daughter when she should have been a son, she fills a quota for conscripts that her brother is still too young to fill for himself. Her biggest mistake is having proved useful with a gun.

  “Only,” says Rachel, “I’m not going to swap sides again.” It takes me a moment to realize what she means.

  “You were…?”

  “Uplift militia, before I joined this lot.”

  “So were we all,” says Franc. I’m still considering this casual revelation of treason, when Franc adds, “And we’re not going to keep swapping until we’re dead. We plan to escape.”

  Rachel looks interested. “How are you intending to do that?”

  “No idea,” says Franc. “Shil thought Sven might know.”

  Laughing is probably the wrong response, but since the alternative is swearing at them for a bunch of idiots it’s the best I can offer.

  CHAPTER 47

  SEVEN CARGO ships lie at anchor in Mica Harbor. They’re old, badly maintained, and rusting. Oxide inhibitor has been spray-gunned across their sides and left unpainted, a tattered flag flaps from each stern, and ropes run from high on deck to rusting bollards on the jetty below.

  From where we stand to the headland opposite is five miles. Marching around the fjord’s edge would mean navigating a shoreline twisty enough to be almost fractal. We might walk it in a week if we were lucky. So we’re about to make an eight-hundred-mile journey in those ships, down the coast from here to Bhose.

  There’s only one problem.

  Six of these ships are not going to arrive.

  It’s looking at the last of them that tells me this. Whoever spray-gunned the Winter Wind with oxide inhibitor was wasting his time, because it’s obvious that the steel was already fine. In fact, the vessel is newer than the other six by several years, if not decades. We’re meant to look at these and see seven rust buckets. And from the swearing of the prisoners around me that’s exactly what most of them are seeing.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Shil.

  “I’m not sure yet, but something’s badly wrong. We’re going to need weapons.”

  Haze and Franc glance at each other, then look away.

  “What?” I demand, calling them on it.

  Franc goes red, but Haze stares back with eyes that are almost hollow. I’ve no idea where he is, but it’s obviously not anywhere that the rest of us would recognize.

  “I’m a weapon,” he says finally. “And so are you.”

  I sigh. “Anyone got a knife? Anything useful at all?”

  “What do you want?” asks Rachel.

  “A gun,” I tell her. “But I’ll settle for a blade.”

  She walks away without another word. Her red hair is simplicity itself to follow through the crowd as she heads toward a pair of Silver Fist. One of them turns to see who it is and smiles a particularly nasty smile. His arm reaches out to catch her, and Rachel allows herself to be caught.

  “That’s the bastard who…”

  “Yes,” says Shil, cutting short my outrage. “We know.”

  AMBER AND ARTIFACTS announces a sign above the men. As we watch, one of them tries a door behind him, finds it locked, and leads Rachel around to the side of the warehouse, although drags her might be a better description. The second Silver Fist stands watch, leaning against a wall.

  About five minutes later he turns in response to something unseen and vanishes around the corner. When Rachel returns it’s from a different direction and her mouth is bleeding, but not enough to keep a smile from her lips.

  “You okay?” asks Haze.

  “Sure.”

  “What happened?” he says, and then blushes.

  “Nothing like that,” she replies.

  Franc’s laugh is sour. “Don’t tell me. They got more than they expected?”

  “Yeah,” says Rachel. “If rather less than they hoped.” Tucked under her jacket are a pistol, two knives, and an ID card made out in the name of Sergeant Zil Lanlyr.

  There’s blood on the blade of one of the knives. I don’t know what the glance that passes between Shil and Rachel actually means, and I don’t want to. At the moment I’m just glad they’re both on my side.

  GUARDS JOSTLE PRISONERS up the gangway onto the first ship. When the lower levels have filled and even the deck is crowded, the gangplank is dragged along the jetty to the next ship, which fills just as swiftly.

  And then the gangplank is dragged to the third and fourth ships. A group of Silver Fist begin cutting prisoners out of the crowd for the fifth ship and one of them reaches for me, only to be slapped down by his sergeant.

  “Leave him.”

  The trooper is that much rougher with the next few prisoners he cuts out of our dwindling crowd. When the fifth ship is full, the gangplank is moved again and most of what remains of the defeated is herded onto the ship after that. A corporal grabs at Rachel, who backs away as Haze steps between them.

  The corporal looks shocked, obviously unsure which of the two to deal with first. Reaching around me, he chooses Rachel. So I grip his wrist, swing him around, and put him into the side of a crane. Only I keep hold of his wrist, so his shoulder dislocates with a wet sucking sound.

  He howls.

  One of the other guards is reaching for his own holster when an officer appears, his fists already clenched. His punch flattens the injured corporal, dropping him into the dirt, and then a pistol is in his hand and its muzzle is touching my forehead.

  “Come on,” I tell him. “Pull the fucking trigger.”

  Neen is moving forward but freezes at the shake of my head. This is a test and I’d better be right, because otherwise I’m dead.

  “Well?” I say. “You got the guts?”

  The lieutenant backs away, p
istol still raised and pure hatred in his eyes. This man would kill me if he hadn’t been told that was somebody else’s job.

  “These are the Aux, they’re with me, okay?” My gesture takes in Neen and the others, including Rachel, who looks terrified.

  “Okay?”

  He nods, not quite meeting my eyes.

  “So we’re back in business?” says Franc.

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “My own personal supply of cannon fodder.”

  She grins, knowing it’s not a joke.

  WE’RE ABOUT TO be loaded onto the only ship out of the seven that is actually seaworthy. Haze and I are standing near the gangway, staring out at an oily swell of Mica Harbor with its local boats and old steamers and fishermen keeping well away from whatever the hell is going on along their quayside.

  Storm clouds are gathering on the horizon, the sea swell is higher than when we first arrived, and waves are beginning to fray in the wind. It might be coincidence that brings us to this place tonight, or it might be perfect planning. Either way the Enlightened have what they need: A storm is about to roll right over us.

  All soldiers believe in luck, which is just skill used wisely. And there are things I can and will do without even thinking about them to put luck back on our side, vicious and bloody things.

  Only they’re not going to be enough on their own.

  “Haze,” I say. “A question.”

  His eyes go wide, and then his mouth goes tight. He knows he’s not going to like what I’m about to ask.

  “How good are you really?”

  He wants to pretend he doesn’t understand. Failing that, he wants to lie…Instead he changes the subject. “You still haven’t told the others what’s going to happen to you in Bhose.”

  “Haven’t told you, either.”

  A scowl crosses his face. “The arena,” Haze says. “Facing two ferox.”

  “You can see the future?”

  “Dreams,” he says, adding, “not mine…” And then Haze hesitates, wondering how to say what comes next. “There’s a three-braid around here somewhere. He’s been thinking about little else.”