Stank? Magrid held the pistol steady but dared a glance at the noxious pile of scrap metal that had been a locomotive.
“Cowards!” Magrid spat, sweeping the pistol at the lot of them. “You ran for your lives from some phantom instead of fighting like men! Cowards!”
Then the question Captain Cassio Magrid had been fearing all his life was asked by a sharp voice in the midst of the throng.
“What were you doing, sir?”
Magrid was spared having to answer that damning question when a scream rose from the rear of the formation.
Men turned and saw their death coming. Some made ready to fight, others fell to the floor and wept, and some just stood there in shock. Captain Magrid was one of the latter, despite what he had been told about how his end would come. It was huge, it was dark, it was fast, and when the dark, gnawing tide swept over him and bore him down to a messy end, his last thought was a rather repetitive realization: it did stink.
1
A Test
Milo knew serving in a penal regiment would be dangerous, but he thought he’d at least make it to the frontlines before looking death in the eye.
“Take him behind the latrines,” Jules hissed as his angry, muddy eyes bored into Milo’s pale stare. “I want him sucking his last breath face-down in filth.”
Milo would have spat in Jules’ face if they hadn’t already wound the gag so tightly that his jaw ached. Instead, he settled for straining forward and kicking out as Jules’ cronies began to drag him away. Tall as he was, Milo’s kicks still fell woefully short of their intended targets.
It was early morning, and the rest of the 7th Penal Regiment of the Polish Colonial Forces, the duly named “Mud-Snakes,” were busy prepping for redeployment. As such, no one noticed Milo and his rough-handed escorts as they dragged him across the camp. With one man for each arm and one to keep the gag bound tight at the base of his skull, they skirted the various companies that were hard at work.
Supplies were heaped on flat-backed automobiles, draped in canvas, and then lashed down tight, so they resembled nothing so much as ancient, lumpy beasts of burden. Quartermasters shuffled about, counting and cursing as they sought to dredge order from the chaos, while officers gave sharp, nonsensical orders to men who’d learned better than to pay them much attention. The last ten weeks had not beaten any of the criminal nature out of the motley collection of men in the regiment, but it had taught them that the disgraced officers placed over them were disgraced for a reason.
As the regimental proverb said, “Princes may turn into frogs, but generals don’t turn into mud-snakes.”
More than once, Milo took his life into his hands, straining at his captors to try to get the attention of the men he passed by mouth or motion, but it only earned him sharp blows to the ribs. No one saw him because no one wanted to see him. The sort of business done in the shadows of a penal regiment was something no sane soul wanted to contemplate for long. Even when they reached Milo’s company, everyone seemed to be looking everywhere but at him.
Which was why, not ten paces from the latrines, Milo nearly choked out a laugh through his gag as someone shouted his name through the bustling camp.
“Volkohne! Milo Volkohne!"
The three holding him froze, and Milo felt something cold and sharp pressed against the side of his neck.
“So much as cough,” the man holding his gag whispered, “and I’ll split you like an eel.”
“Milo Volkohne!” came the call again.
Milo didn’t dare move, but he squinted across a row of tents to spy a very large man in an officer’s greatcoat. The seeker’s clothing was stark black instead of muddy gray, marking him as a member of one of the Federated branches of the Imperial German Army and not one of the colonial branches. Milo couldn’t spot the rank on the coat’s shoulder, but it didn’t matter. A Federated officer or Blackcoat of any rank had more authority than a general of the colonial forces.
“It’s a Blackcoat,” the man on his right hissed.
“Shut up,” the gag-handler hissed, the steel blade nicking Milo’s cheek before drifting away.
“Milo Volkohne! Report at once!”
“If he spots us…” the man on Milo’s left wheezed, his grip slackening.
As surreptitiously as he could, Milo started to shift his weight.
“Don’t you dare!” the gag-handler snarled in Milo’s ear as he hauled back on the gag hard.
Through the filthy rag, Milo grinned as he drove his head back into the man’s nose.
Twisting sharply, he tore his left arm free, and just managed to snag the gag-handler’s knife hand by the wrist. The man on his right arm yanked, and Milo was hauled sideways as he let his weight drop. The straining knife skimmed just above Milo’s hair to sink deep into the meat of the left-hand man’s chest. He’d been so busy reaching for Milo’s shoulder that he hadn’t been paying close enough attention.
The knifed man screamed as Milo and the man still gripping his right arm tumbled into the mud, thrashing and punching. Milo hoped that would get the Blackcoat’s attention, but with the ruckus of mobilization, he wasn’t going to leave it to chance. He ripped the gag from his mouth and bellowed at the top of his lungs.
“Volkohne! Volkohne! Volk—”
The man he was grappling threw his considerable weight onto Milo and both pitched into the mud, Milo on the bottom. Earthen slop filled his mouth and he felt the bigger man pressing down, both hands ramming Milo’s face into the smothering muck while weighty haunches settled on his back. Milo kicked and flailed but even when he managed to twist his head to the side, he was so deep there was still no air, only mud.
He felt
