Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

town. The pile grew steadily larger, the marines having to clamber up and over bodies to pile them higher, until finally it was all done. The great mound of bodies rose up above the burning roofs of the nearby houses. And then Razor had them set on fire, too. Smoke billowed up, and the scent of roasting meat was thick on the air. This was too much for some of the marines. They turned away from the bodies curling up in the flames, from the bloody flesh blackening and cracking, and they vomited into the snow. Officers stood over them and shouted abuse and orders. Flynn got it all on film.
    "I'll see Razor dead," he said finally. "I swear I'll see him dead."
    "He's an Investigator, Flynn. Ordinary people like you and me don't kill Investigators."
    "Somebody has to," said Flynn. "While there are still some ordinary people left."
    The billowing black smoke rose high above what had once been the town of Hardcastle's Rock, population 2031, as the marines trooped back to their ships for the flight to Mistport.
    Two marines strode down the main street of Hardcastle's Rock, passing a bottle of booze back and forth between them. Buildings burned to either side of them, and the great funeral pyre blazed fiercely in the middle of the town, sending a great pall of greasy black smoke up into the evening sky. For Kast and Morgan,
    career marines, it was just another job. They'd seen and done worse in their years serving under Bartok the Butcher. There wasn't much to choose between the two marines. Both large, muscular men in blood-spattered armor, with broad cheerful faces and eyes that had seen everything.
    They wandered on through the town, waiting for their turn to reboard the pinnace that would take them on to Mistport. First in, last out, as always. So far, they didn't think much of Mistworld. It was freezing cold, with people who shot at you when you weren't expecting it, and no comforts anywhere. So they went from house to house, checking those that hadn't burned out too thoroughly for loot and booze, since there weren't any women to be had.
    "Miserable bloody place," said Morgan.
    "Right," said Kast, leaning forward to light a cigar from a burning doorframe.
    "Still, good to be back in action again."
    "Damn right," said Morgan. "Thought I'd go crazy sitting around the Defiant, watching that bloody Grendel planet. This is real work. Soldier's work."
    Neither of them mentioned their time in the interrogation cells under Golgotha, sobbing and screaming as the mind techs dug pitilessly for information about the broken Quarantine. It was just good to be free and striking back at an enemy that could hurt. Spread the pain around a little. That was the Empire way, after all. They came across a woman's body, somehow overlooked, sitting slumped just inside a doorway. As the marines stopped before her, her bloody head seemed to settle forward slightly, as though nodding to them. Kast dug Morgan in the ribs with his elbow.
    "I think she fancies you."
    "Probably still warm, too. Toss a coin for who goes first?"

    "Sure. We'll use my coin, though. You cheat."
    They tossed for it, and Morgan won, but when he reached forward to take her by the shoulders, the woman's head fell off and rolled away across the snow.
    Immediately the two marines were after it, laughing and shouting and kicking it back and forth in an impromptu game. The woman's body lay slumped in the doorway, forgotten. Morgan punted the "ball" neatly through an open window and jumped up and down, punching the air in triumph.
    "And it's a goal! See, Kast, I told you. The old magic's still there. I could have been a professional."
    "Yeah, and I could have been a Sergeant if my parents hadn't been married. Move it. Time's getting on."
    The rest of the town proved a disappointment, so Kast produced a packet of marshmallows, and they sat by the funeral pyre to toast them, swapping happy reminiscences of past campaigns. The evening continued to fall, little by little, and the pyre spread a crimson hellglow over the deserted town. Kast and Morgan sang old songs of comradeship and violence and lost friends, and finally marched out of the burning town singing the company march. The last of the pinnaces waited to take them to Mistport.
    In Mistport, in the Abraxus Information Center, the children all woke up screaming. They sat bolt upright, mouths stretched wide, their eyes full of blood and death. The ones strapped to their cots thrashed and convulsed, desperate to be free. Chance