But you know only that this is no dream; you have not yet guessed that this is My Gift to you.
There is the feel of alien muscles, too long and hard for human; your arms are now a double-span longer than your legs. Your pebbled hide slides over ribs too heavy, not flexible enough, guarding a heart that beats too hard and too slow. Pale northern sun barely warms your spinal ridge through the heavy leather of your tunic. Your trifid upper lip parts around your upcurved tusks and you growl, Kopav Dust Mirror. They tell me he dens here.
The smaller of the two ogrillo studs inside swivels on his stool till his back is to you. His spinal ridge is bent like a bow: pup rickets, maybe. His skull crest is bald and bleached with age. You smell human.
The big one snorts. Hrk. Human.
You take a step, clearing the doorway. I want to find Kopav Dust Mirror. I can pay.
Bet you can, citybred. The small one glances over his twisted shoulder. Nice boots.
Yeah. Hrk. Boots. The big one snuffles a gust of corruption. Something rotten’s stuck in his teeth. Maybe it’s just his teeth. Don’t see boots like that in Hell.
Or Ignik Dust Mirror. Either one. Ignik ’Tchundiget.
Don’t know you, citybred. The little hunchback flips one fighting claw forward over his fist, examining it ostentatiously. Name your clan.
Black Knife.
Both studs go still. They stare at you so they won’t look at each other.
Finally the hunchback says, Ain’t Black Knives. Ain’t since the Horror. His shell of overplayed boredom has dissolved into wary tusk-display.
You shrug. I can take that up with Kopav.
Black Knife? Hrk. Black Knife? The big one sniggers. Looks more to me like No Knife. He looks at the other. Good one, hey? No Knife.
Your heart thumps into a heavier cadence that swells your brow ridges with angry blood, and you look down at your arms, at the sleeves of your tunic; sleeves longer than any ogrillo ever wears, sleeves so long they’d foul your fighting claws. If you had fighting claws.
Your wrists are empty as a human’s. Blank except for wads of scar tissue.
The stumps of your shame.
You give your shame the answer you carry in a sheath sewn inside your tunic: an SPEF KA-BAR, seven inches of matte-black chrome steel blade so sharp that just its pressure against the side of the big one’s neck draws a thin chain of blood-beads gemlike along its edge.
This enough knife for you?
Hey now. He doesn’t move: not as stupid as he looks. Hey now.
The hunchback rises, slow, hands up and open, the human gesture of surrender. His fighting claws fold along his forearms. No need to hook red, hey? Easy now. Just say what you want, hey?
I want some eyeball with Kopav Dust Mirror.
You might like to tell me what for, he offers, sidling closer.
You might like your fuckbitch’s head where it is. You add a little pressure to the knife. Blood spoor pumps your salivary glands. Keep your teeth off my kill.
Hey-hey, fuck! The big one looks puzzled. Offended. Not frightened. Not hurt. Hey, I’m cut! He cuts me. Hey-
The hunchback considers this. Here’s the call, citybred. Come back two league-walks after sundown-
Your eyes flick toward the window, instinctively, to check the light and gauge the hour, just a flick, less than an eyeblink, but they knew you’d do it and the big one jerks his head back from your blade and one fighting claw jams for your groin while his other slashes for the forearm tendons of your knife hand. You twist sharp enough to knock the groin stab aside, but you feel the tug below your navel and a sudden flood scalds your crotch and thickens the air with sweet hot blood. You flick the KA-BAR in a short arc and the blade sticks in bone; the big one howls and wrenches his arm away into the table and it collapses and he goes with it. The little one lunges fast as a pro but your other hand comes out full of Automag and a single squeeze of burstfire unlaces his belly and blows him spinning backward to crash into the shack wall.
The parchment window rips. Sunlight stabs a curl of gunsmoke.
A continuous clang sings in your ears.
The big one cowers, kneeling, tears painting crimson streaks along his snout. The hunchback sits crumpled against the wall, cursing in a low, steady monotone while he tries to hold his guts in place with both hands. Fuckbitch. You got a gun. A fucking gun. You never say you got a gun, you fuckbitch.
You step over to him, Automag leveled on the big one. Kopav Dust Mirror, you remind him.
Fuck my bitch. I never be shot before. Fucking guns. This kills me, hey?
Likely.
You fuckbitch.
Want to go easy? I track that. You squat beside him and show him the knife.Want to go hard, I can track that too.
He stares through you.
You shrug. Or lie in your shit and hope a Knight comes. Maybe Khryl grants a Healing after you tell him how you try to gut me for my boots, hey?
His eyes drift shut.
What you want?
It’s you, hey? You’re Kopav?
Yah.
You’re Kopav ’Jurginget? Kopav Black Knife once?
His eyes open again. They’re the same color as yours. Once, he says. In puptime. Before the land hates Black Knives. Long gone now. I’m Dust Mirror since the Horror. No more Black Knives.
Your upper lip curls under and your lower peels down, baring your tusks to the roots. Except for me.
His gaze fixes on you, and there’s a hint of a spark there before a spasm of pain smudges his face blank. What you want?
You stand, knife in one hand, Automag in the other. Submission.
Huh. His face goes old now, tired and sad. Just that?
Yeah.
Fuck my bitch. Dint have to shoot me.
You cock your head half an inch. Dint have to rush me.
So-submission. His jaw works. And?
And you go easy.
He stares at you for a long time. From outside come grunts and distant shouts and shuffle and scuffle, drawn by the shots. Inside there is only blood and bowels and the whimper of the bigger one clutching the spurting gash in his forearm. You can see pain picking up steam by the waves of emptiness that roll through the hunchback’s eyes.
Finally he hisses resignation. Dint have to shoot me.
You wait.
He rolls himself forward off the wall, kneeling, and lowers his face until his forehead rests on your insteps. You thumb the Automag over to single shot.
He says, I give myself to you-
You center the muzzle on the crown of his spinal ridge.
— fuckbitch.
The slug splinters a fist-size hole through the floor planks. A wet one. You track the hunchback’s brains over to the other.