Sleipnir

I whirled and stopped. It was over. There had been only two. I found myself on my knees, panting hard, staring in abrupt amazement at the impossible knife clutched in my palm. The heavy blade was streaked with red against the snow; so was most of my uniform. Only now did I realize that the long, curved "tail" of the haft was somehow wrapped snugly around my wrist.

Twice...

Likewise—now that it had my undivided attention—I could tell that the flesh-textured surface of the haft was indeed radiating a perceptible warmth against my frozen skin.

I looked more closely. Call it a hallucination, but those damned eyes were twinkling, visibly—and the haft moved within my grasp. Somehow, from somewhere, I was getting the impression of laughter... .

But even as I stared, the eerie glow died away, and the knife was flat black again. I yelled and shook my hand violently, trying to shake the thing loose. It fell to the snow, and blurred—or maybe it was my vision—

I shut my eyes. When I opened them again, a bloody entrenching tool lay in the snow before me.

"Hey, Randy—"

A hand fell on my shoulder. With a shout I convulsed sideways. I landed sprawled in the snow and my cheek touched something warm and wet. I jerked away and looked down. It was the raghead's severed hand. Still twitching in the snow.

"Man, you okay?" Monroe looked scared and worried and awestruck at the same time.

"Uhng... ."

The guys crowded around. I sat up slowly. Someone was yelling for the lieutenant, and someone else was yelling for the medic. Everyone was talking at once. I felt sick and dizzy; it was difficult to follow what was going on.

Sergeant Brown shouted for order and formed us into a circular defensive perimeter—fat lot of good that would do, but it felt right—while Lieutenant Donaldson radioed Captain Jones that we'd had a real incident, somebody trying to steal weapons, and that shots had been fired. The L-T was also bright enough to call for another platoon—an armed one—to search the area for other terrorist patrols.

"How many down, Sergeant?" I heard him call.

"Two enemy dead; one of our boys down."

Donaldson relayed that and requested an ambulance. Wally was yelling for the medic to shag his butt. Crater swore nonstop, propped against a tree, his pants covered with blood. Wally held a compress against the wound. The medic pushed Wally out of the way and took over.

"Crater," I called shakily, "you okay?"

"Yeah, dammit, I took one across the back of my effin' thigh—ahhhh!" The medic had ripped his pants open. "Keep that asshole away from me or I'll kill the son-of—ahhhh—" He yelled again as the medic did something else to his leg.

"Clam it, Barnes!" Brown barked. "Watch the goddamn perimeter!" He then turned his wrath on Monroe, who'd left his position.

Chuck stood over Johnson and clutched his useless M-16. Chuck made a good show of watching the perimeter. He was also effectively holding Johnson down. That worthless dildo lay shivering in the snow, looking utterly wretched. No one had to ask Crater who the "asshole" was.

The ambulance showed up seconds before three jeeploads of MPs skidded to a halt. It would have been hard to decide which we were happier to see. The ambulance meant help for Crater; but the MPs had bullets.

They landed spitting orders.

"Get these men out of here."

"Anyone touch that evidence?"

"Search everyone—I don't want any goddamned souvenirs walking off this site!"

"Who was directly involved in this?"

The latter question was from the MP Captain in charge of the investigation. Lieutenant Donaldson had the two ranking MPs in tow, moving purposefully toward Sergeant Brown. The MPs patted down the platoon for souvenirs, then sent us out of the area they had already roped off as the "crime scene."

Brown reported succinctly who had done what to whom.

Donaldson glanced at me, then looked at the ragheads closely for the first time. His eyes widened. Then he turned on me, his expression grim, and noticed the condition of my uniform. "Spill it, son."

Not wanting a court-martial for insubordination, I chose not to reply that I already had spilled it. In quantity. Not wanting a Section Eight, I was not about to mention Gary's knife. I did describe Johnson's giveaway of our position; then toe-danced selectively through the details of my role in the fight. The MP Captain listened intently. I watched him even more so. My blood pressure began to subside as it became apparent that he was not more than normally suspicious.

"This is the weapon?" Donaldson asked into the silence that ensued when I finished. He pointed toward the bloody entrenching tool with the toe of one boot.

"Yessir. It was the only thing I could think of grabbing, sir, when the blanks didn't have any effect."

The MPs examined the dead terrorists while Donaldson eyed the severed hand. "And just how did you inflict this kind of damage with an entrenching tool, soldier?"

I opened my mouth on empty air when Johnson broke in. His voice was shaking almost as hard as the rest of him.

"It wasn't the shovel—he had a knife, dammit, a huge knife! I saw it—it was about a foot long and black... ."

He gulped and shut up under the L-T's withering stare.

Donaldson regarded me quizzically. I shrugged, forcing myself to meet his eyes. "I don't know what he's talking about, sir. I haven't got anything more than a pocket knife on me. And"—I indicated the entrenching tool with a jerk of my thumb—"there's blood all over the shovel. I keep it sharp, sir. I just swung hard and thought about it afterward."

"Maybe Barnes used shovel judo," Chuck suggested helpfully into the silence.

Donaldson glared at him; then had me strip in the snow. Of course there wasn't a knife anywhere to be found, other than my little three-inch folder.

"There will be an inquest, soldier," he said, skewering me with his gaze while I got dressed. "Everyone involved will be questioned by Captain Plunkett." He nodded toward the MP Captain concluding his notes on my report.

Plunkett finished scrawling in his notebook and looked up. "I want this site left untouched, and I want all of you back at the base immediately. Out into the road, all of you. Detriech, make sure you get all the brass. Half of it's going to be under the snow."

After being dismissed, we trudged down to join the rest of the platoon on the road. There we waited for the truck Lieutenant Donaldson had radioed for. We stood around in the snow and carefully avoided meeting each other's eyes. Especially me. I had more reason not to want to talk with anyone than all the rest of them combined. Being a hero is embarrassing. Plus, I really needed to get back to the base armory and look inside that damned box. It was there, of course—it had to be there—but I needed very badly to see that it was there.

Though I wasn't certain I could trust my own eyes anymore... .

Several hours of intensive grilling later, the MPs were satisfied and I was free to go, the last member of our squad released. The others were waiting outside, questions written all over their faces.

"I du

Wally nodded.

"How's Crater?" I asked.

"Okay. The medics are holding him at the infirmary overnight; then he'll be back with us for light duty. They're sending us back to the field, I guess."

Wally didn't sound pleased.

"At least we're still around to go back," Chuck said quietly. "I never saw anything like it, man," he added. "Jumping them like that, with nothing but a goddamn shovel. We were lucky they didn't hit us worse before you got them. How'd you do it?"

I looked off into the distance, uncomfortable over the awe in his voice. I had pulled a suicidal-seeming stunt with a shovel and they all figured I was some kind of hero who'd saved their lives, or something.