Rebirth of the Deathjack – Act I

Act I: Leftovers and Scraps

“Nothing useful.” Nando Corazo muttered in disgust, wiping the blood and dirt from his hands. Pressing down on his knees for leverage, he straightened up from the uncomfortable squat he was in, grimacing as his back gave a twinge. Giving the corpse he was searching a light kick in frustration, he took the rifle he’d looted from under the body and turned it over in his hands, sighting along the barrel. It would normally have fetched a decent price, but for the damage to the rifle’s action. As it turned out, the bullet that killed this poor sod hit the ejection port of the rifle, rendering it little more than a chunk of wood and metal.

Nando called to his daughter who was a couple yards off, idly drawing in a patch of mud with a twig.

“Come along, Rena.”

Nando smiled as he reflected on how children could find simple amusements, even among such carnage. Since his wife died and his farm failed, he and his daughter had been reduced to drifting from place to place, looting corpses in battlefields for anything they could sell, or barter away for a few days’ food and lodging. A child’s joy is hard to find in a life like this, and is all the more precious when it finally turns up.

“‘Kay daddy!”

Nando watched as Rena scooped up her teddy, turned, and ran towards him. She beamed up at her father, and proudly held out the small handful of crowns that she’d managed to scrounge out of the dirt. Nando smiled and ruffled her hair, pocketing the meagre bounty.

“That’s my girl.”

They moved on to another area of the battlefield, continuing their search for items of worth. Rena followed close behind her father with her eyes downcast, squeezing her bear and clutching tightly to the hem of his coat with her tiny fingers. What lay before them was particularly horrific. Up to this point, most of the slain soldiers met their end by blade or bullet. The remains found here, however, appeared to have been pulverized, and/or ripped apart by some sort of beast. The mounds of ruined flesh and pools of blood grew closer together until, in the distance, was a circle of nearly uninterrupted red. The acrid smell of burnt and rotting flesh amidst the gore was pervasive, and if one hadn’t known the history of what happened here, it would have been difficult to tell that the formless masses on the ground were once human.

Nando took in the surroundings, mouth agape. He had scavenged many battlefields and thought that he had seen all of the terrible things that men could do to each other in war, but he had never seen anything so savage as this.

“Can we go Daddy? This place is scary.” Rena murmured, tugging at Nando’s coat.

His daughter was not alone in the desire to leave this place. Just being in this place made him shiver. Unfortunately, they needed whatever salvage they could find, if they were to survive. Despite the carnage before them, he was certain that there would be something of value, something to make it all worthwhile. There was something inside telling him so.

He led Rena to a large rock and sat her down on it, giving her a hug. “Not quite yet, but soon. I just need to see if there’s anything we can use over there. Stay here and try not to look. Keep an ear out, though, okay?”

She nodded, and said with a small smile, ”Alright daddy.”

“That’s my girl. I’ll be back before you know it.” Nando said as he stood up, giving her a quick peck on the forehead. “Holler if you hear anything.”

He began scrounging through the site inspecting the slain soldiers’ effects, careful to avoid the ones who had appeared to have been doused in some sort of acid. He didn’t want to find out just how corrosive that noxious stuff was firsthand. All in all, the search was not nearly so fruitful as his previous certainty had suggested, as most of the weapons were broken as badly as their former owners. Now that he had a closer look at the slain men, he began to wonder what could deal out this level of mayhem and destruction. He had never seen, nor heard of any kind of beast, or ‘Jack, that could do this kind of damage to so many, let alone spray acid. He stood up and scanned the area, eyes narrowed, for some kind of clue.

Nando’s eyes were drawn to the centre of the scene, and settled on the ruins of an old labourjack at the centre of the circle of blood, about 100 meters away. This was not something he expected to see. What was an old labourjack doing at the epicenter of a battle? What was an old labourjack doing in a battle at all? He started towards it with a shrug, and could feel within him an urgency driving him forward. By the time he reached the ruin of the old ‘jack, he was a dead run.

Dropping to one knee, Nando gasped for breath, his lungs and ribs burning from the exertion. When he had composed himself and glanced up, what he saw made him gasp, falling over onto his backside.

“Thamar’s Teeth” he whispered.

In front of him was a grotesque, black-steel skull with three spikes resting by wreckage of the labourjack. The metal showed absolutely no signs of damage, and a warped reflection of the surrounding devastation was visible in the smoothly curved, unblemished surface. The three spikes rose up from the forehead and crown of the skull to wickedly sharp points. Nando knew in the depths of his soul that this thing was horribly… utterly… evil. It radiated pure malice, and though he tried to look away, some unheard voice turned his attention back to it, bidding him nearer. As he approached the skull, it seemed to steal the warmth from his flesh, and the carrion birds fell silent.

Tentatively, he extended a hand to the skull, lightly caressing the cold, smooth surface. Even as he wrapped his hands around it and began wresting it from the damp earth, something was screaming in his mind that shouldn’t be doing this, but he knew that it was likely the only thing of value left in this hellish place.

Nando lurched back as he finally tore the skull from its resting place. He rose with his prize, holding it high above his head, grinning toothily with a sense of accomplishment that far outweighed the mundane nature of the task. He turned, about to tuck the skull under his arm, when he heard his daughter scream.