Some of them were still jumpy and on edge from their last run-in with the half-man, but more of them were settling down. Soa was just as crazy as he always was. Van was cracking jokes, which meant he was still afraid. Gutty was sleeping, easy as a baby, always. A few of them started passing a bottle. If they’d been closer to the war lines, Ocho might have shut it down, but soldiers couldn’t stand ready all the time, and at least they were out of the heart of the Drowned Cities.

Ocho watched them pass the bottle, listening to their murmured banter and insults. The half-man had hurt them, all right, but Ocho thought their previous encounters had also made them stronger. If it came to another fight, they were ready. They knew what to expect this time.

He lay back, trying to make himself comfortable, knowing the pain in his ribs was too much to let him sleep. He wished there were more of those pink pills the doctor girl had given him, but he was damned if he was going to look like he was begging to get out of a little hurt.

The fire burned lower and the liquor bottle went around again. Or was it a new bottle? Van had rousted more than one off the people in the town. He was good at that—finding the secret stashes.

Soa was complaining again. “What’s that stink?” he asked. “Did Slim fart, or what?”

Ocho sniffed. Soa was right. There was a strange nauseous reek of blood and musk in the air. Ocho sniffed again, puzzled. It seemed to be coming off the bodies lying right beside him.

Was the smell something that the half-man had done? He’d never heard of a smell associated with half-men. Just that they were fast and strong and hard to kill. Whatever this was, it was nasty.

Ocho looked away from his dead troops, feeling ill at the losses. Jones and Bugball and Allende. Dead and stinking.

Of all the ways Ocho had expected to die, being torn apart by a dog-face had never been one of them. Bullet in the head, sure. Hands chopped off and him thrown into a canal to bleed out, maybe. Blown to pieces by some leftover land mine from when Tulane Company had occupied all their territory, for sure. He’d come to terms with all those options, long ago.

Instead, he’d taken one impossibly fast and bloody swipe from a half-man and gone flying into a tree. No wonder the swanks who owned the scrap ships always used half-men. The bastards were deadly.

Ocho ran an idle hand over his bandages and stitches. Lucky they’d run across the doctor and his castoff. Those two had done a better job than any of the butchers in the Drowned Cities. The so-called doctors there barely knew how to tie a tourniquet.