Dead Boys (16 page)

“Yeargh!” he said again, and continued thrashing about on the table, causing untold damage to those parts of his person that had not yet been fully reconstructed, provoking the Medic to lean over his face with a stern, bony forefinger extended. The gesture startled Otho into obedience, as it had hundreds of patients before him, for even a corpse as battle-hardened as Otho was vulnerable to that combination of paternal condescension and facial mutilation that passed for the Medic’s bedside manner. However, although Otho no longer struggled, he complained as they finished his stitching, utilizing blunt, guttural syllables that were incomprehensible to Jacob but which Etienne finally and definitively responded to in kind.

“What was that?” murmured Jacob.

“Plains-Deadish,” replied Etienne. “He was cursing his underlings for leaving him here with us, and I told him to be grateful to Oxnard that he wasn’t left where he lay.”

“You learned an entire language when you passed through?”

“It’s mostly ‘smash’ and ‘run’: you can learn the basics in an hour or two.”

The Medic, having inspected all of Otho’s reconstructed parts, clacked his fingers together, signifying that the work was done. Otho, once he’d looked at the Medic’s eyes for permission, lurched off of the table and onto his feet, stomping irritably on his prosthesis and waving his shortened arm with a bellow of dissatisfaction as he made his way through the front of the tent.

Once outside, his demeanor changed: staring past the lounging forms of Jacob’s compatriots, he fixed his eyes on the Plains, which were clear now for miles around and sparsely peopled with far-off figures returning to the business of beating each other with sticks. Two such corpses were engaged in a barely visible duel, each far-off blow provoking an agonizing break in the action as both fighters struggled to regain the balance, composure, and grip they needed to continue. Miles beyond them, a dark, earth-hugging cloud marked the outer edge of that ceaselessly churning mass of corpses called the scrimmage, which Otho stood silently watching by Remington’s side.

“Hey, you’re all fixed up!” said Remington, patting the giant’s shoulder. “So—so why are you sad?”

“He’s not much of a talker, this guy,” said the RN through her teeth. She padded out of the tent on her palms, then rested the stump of her torso on the earth between them, spitting a button into one hand. “I think I understand him, though. He used to be somebody. He used to have a shot at this.” She waved at the scrimmage. “So did I, once. Or I thought I did. But it gets harder to head back into the scrimmage every time you leave it, especially once you start leaving parts of yourself behind.”

“Yeargh,” said Otho in agreement, sitting awkwardly down beside her.

“But look at him,” said Remington. “He’s huge! He’s scary! Why couldn’t he still be the winner?”

The RN hobbled over to Otho, squinting into his craggy face, where a flinty compassion had arisen. “Kid don’t understand. Still got all the parts he came with.”

Otho trembled as he buried his face in his knees.

“But hey,” she said, slapping him on the back. “I wasn’t trying to get you down. Like the kid says, you’re a big guy! And
real
scary. Look, here’s a little pick-me-up.” She held out the button, large and navy-blue with an anchor etched into its face, and dropped it into his palm. “This’ll get you a bashing-stick from the Armory or a mug of swill back in the Tunnels. Choice is yours. Good luck.

“Come on, let’s leave him be.” She loped back inside, and Remington, with a glance at the broken warrior, followed.

The Medic, who’d been waiting for the RN’s assistance, gestured under the table and folded his arms.

“You’re kidding,” she said. “The lock-box? What for?”

The Medic directed her onto the stool where she could see Jacob’s gifts: the needle, a pair of pliers, and a dental pick. She held up her hands, retracting her complaint, and when the Medic scooped up these prizes and tipped the door onto its side, she scooted the sawhorses out of the way and swept a thick layer of dirt off of an object buried below.

“This is our stash,” she said as the Medic dug up the handles of a buried trunk and lifted it from the ground. “We don’t collect these on purpose, but every once in a while someone like your buddy comes in, gets fixed up, and decides he’s had enough. If he leaves behind a parting gift, we have to wait for the merchants to come around before we can unload them, and obviously it’s better if nobody else knows we have these in here. So let’s keep this quiet, okay?”

The Medic threw open the lid, revealing a modest selection of weaponry, from which the squadron selected their first bashers and crashers.

“Generous as this is,” said Leopold, “I rather think we ought to stop by this Armory before we step into the fray. Who knows? We might trade these in for even more fearsome accessories.”

“Nonsense,” said Jacob, digging through the supplies. “These will do nicely. We’re not trying to decimate the population of the Plains, merely cut a path through them.”

“But there will be other advantages to an exchange,” Leopold went on. “For instance, we might learn the fastest route to White City!”

“White Gate is due south,” said Etienne. “Straight as an arrow flies.”

“I must insist, my friends, that we think this through—”

“And I must insist,” said Jacob, leveling a crowbar at Leopold’s face, “that you either show your hand or put the cards away. Convince us with the truth of what you’re after, Leopold, or it’s full steam ahead.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Leopold. Irritably, he withdrew his suggestion, pulled a length of chain from the box, and followed on.

Once they’d said their goodbyes, the company stepped past the bowed shoulders of Otho, Jacob using his crowbar as a walking-stick, Remington cheerfully swinging a traffic sign over his head (it read ‘SPEED LIMIT 35 MPH’ and was sharpened to a point at the end of its post), Leopold slinging his chain around his shoulders, Adam holding a rusty chef’s knife, and Eve with a ski-pole in one hand and a trash-can lid in the other. Without a backward glance, the company strode into the Plains of War.

CHAPTER NINE

Recruits!

R
ecruits!”

“Hey yo, peep the shiny-ass hides on these recruits!”

“Twenty paces remain until your dismemberment.”

“Recruits!”

The voices came from the top of a hillock, where three heads were impaled on a tall, pointed pole, each pointing in a different direction, each shouting over the heap of limbs and severed heads that lay below.

“Impaled,” said Leopold, “like cubes of lamb on an infernal kebab! Is this some savage punishment?”

“Just the opposite,” said Etienne. “They’re spectators. Now that they’ve lost their bodies, watching is all they have left. If somebody thought they deserved punishment, they’d be face-down, left to endlessly examine the dirt before their eyes.”

“Recruits!”

“I pray for the arrival of the Horde.”

“The Hordesmen gonna cut y’all into teeth and nuggets.”

“Recruits, recruits, recruits!”

“Is that a bad word here?” said Remington.

“We’re newcomers,” said Etienne. “We’ve earned no respect, and they’ll show none until we do.”

“We’re immigrants all over again,” muttered Leopold, annoyed enough to tug the chain from around his shoulders and begin swinging it provocatively as he climbed the hillock. “What do you say, gentlemen,” he called to the company, “a spot of target practice before we enter the fray?”

All at once, the severed heads in the pile below the pole erupted with indignation, and though they lacked the means to follow through on their threats, their volume alone was enough to stop Leopold’s progress.

“Wow, look who’s tough now!” said the top corpse on the pole, whose parchment-like skin held the remnants of the cornrow braids his minions had maintained until his beheading.

“Recruits!” yelled the lumpen head beneath him.

“You lack the conviction to attack us,” said the head on the bottom, her face hanging off the bone.

“Lack the balls, too. We got the good seats for a reason, heard? My name’s Killer Clay, this here’s Gork, and that’s Desi the Destroyer. Remember the names—you’ll be hearing ‘em again!”

“We’d better leave them be,” said Jacob, looking around uneasily. “It seems likely that their elevation was a mark of respect.”

“Respect!” said Gork.

“Got that right,” said Clay. “We’re only up here until El Ultimo Hombre chops his last neck-bone.”

A cheer went up from the heads on the hillock. “And then,” said Desi, “we become generals in the Ultimate Army.”

“The Ultimate Army,” said Etienne, intrigued. “Does the Last Man Standing bring it with him when he ascends?”

“
Por supuesto
,” said Desi. “We shall conquer the living, and he shall rule them.”

“A new chapter in the story!” said Etienne from his plaque. “And will your lives be restored as well?”

“Dag,” said Clay, “I wouldn’t complain.”

“Sacrilege!” cried Desi, scowling up the pole. “The Last Man Standing alone shall have life.”

“We do get our bodies back, though,” said Clay.

“Recruits!” said Gork.

“Enthralling as this anthropological study is,” said Leopold, “it’s time we hastened from here. The longer we let these bodiless braggarts announce our presence, the slimmer our chances of safely reaching White City.”

“White City?” said Desi over the horrified murmurs of the spectators below. “What business have you with those
brujos
?”

“Damn,” said Clay, “getting hewn in twain ain’t enough for y’all? It’s dust or nothing for these recruits!”

“Recruits!
Recruits!
” cried Gork.

“Leopold’s right: we should go,” said Jacob, but by then it was too late. Gork’s repetitive holler, no mere function of his idiocy, had reached a marauding squadron to the south that was now making its way toward the hillock. Their numbers and armaments were obscured by a grand, oaken door turned sideways, carried like an enormous shield by two fighters who were completely hidden but for hands and feet, plodding toward the hillock with funereal persistence.

“Have we anything that resembles a plan?” said Leopold, contemplating the gouges on the face of the door. “It’s been some time since my swashbuckling days, and I’m not sure that I recall the proper protocols. Etienne, old bean, you’ve been through this before: how did you survive?”

“I ran.”

“I cannot see,” complained Desi.

“Hey yo!” said Clay. “Desiderata’s got a bad angle. Can one of y’all turn her to face the action?”

“Help this remnant of wench to view the destruction that you brought upon us?” said Leopold.

“If you’re salty about it, let’s trade,” said Clay. “That half-assed formation is gonna get y’all diced. Do right by Desi and I’ll hook it up.”

“Go ahead,” said Jacob. “We have no better alternative.”

After Remington turned Desi toward the approaching squadron, Clay began directing the band into a defensive position. He was startled into silence, for as soon as he’d mentioned that the headless ought to be shoved out front, they walked there.

“Hold up, did those meat-shields hear what I said?”

“Sure,” said Remington. “They use my head.”

“Say what now?” said Clay.

“They use my head,” said Remington. “They see what I see, hear what I hear.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Clay. “Now that’s the kind of trick you want to keep in pocket, dig? Make them play dumb until that squad is attacking, ‘cause nobody’s going to expect them to fight. And keep yourself out the way: if you go down, half your boys go with you.”

“You tell them too much for such a tiny favor,” said Desi.

“Nah, we’re fitting to have a proper fight now,” said Clay. “You watch.”

While the door was still in the distance, the warriors behind it knelt down, leaving a single, scrawny corpse standing upright, bearing a bulging satchel and whirling a leather sling from which a stone the size of a child’s fist flew. The stone popped Remington square in his open mouth and pitched the crow out of his skull with a squawk of alarm.

“First strike!” called Clay, elevating the spectators’ chatter to an uproar, to the distraction of those under attack. “Forget the surprise, get that chick working her shield!”

Eve lunged across the hillock, attempting to intercept the stones that were thudding into her companions’ bodies. While the squadron advanced, still crouching behind the lowered door, the stone-thrower knocked Jacob off-balance with a stone to the hip, twisted Eve’s shield on her wrist, and knocked Adam’s knife to the ground: impressive feats of marksmanship with an arm that was no more than bone and gristle.

Leopold, however, remained unmoved. “A decent trick, but I fail to see what tactical advantage can be won by pelting men whose nerves are incapable of—
Zwounds
!” he cried, for the stone-thrower’s latest projectile snapped his broomstick in two, at which his broken neck folded, his head struck his chest, and his chain fell to his feet. A moment later another stone, striking his knee, sent him sprawling to the ground, where he remained for much of the battle, struggling to right himself with one hand while holding his head up with the other.