The iron woodstove in Dugout Three radiated a comforting red glow. He drove the damp sulfur chill from the underground bunker.
Arthur Vance washed his forearms over a basin of hot carbolic rinse, the dark insect beast-blood swirling down into the drainage bucket. On the dry pine workbench beside him, three glass carboys of clear, stopped centipede antiseptic stood neatly corked and labeled. Grimm lay stretched out near the hearth, his heavy head resting across Arthur’s spare pair of dry socks. Meanwhile, Pip perched high on an overhead timber strut. It tucked his beak beneath his wing in warm post-combat satisfaction.
The heavy canvas curtain across the dugout entryway was pulled aside.
Private Vane, a young scout from the forward watching posts, staggered into the bunker. He was cradling an Iron-Bite Mastiff in his arms. A heavy, slate-coated war hound weighing forty pounds, whose hindquarters hung limp. The dog’s left flank was torn by a jagged cut four inches long, crusted with gray rotting slime and oozing foul, foul-smelling yellow ooze from an earlier brush with an Ash-Centipede scavenger.
“Cadet Vance... Sir,” Vane gasped, his eyes wide with desperate terror. “They told me you saved Goliath. Please. It’s Buster. He caught a claw during the dawn outer edge sweep. The squad medic gave him a field dressing, but the rot is spreading up his hip.”
