The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick

waist and placed them firmly on her breasts. “Deny it now!”
    Horrified, Will snatched his hands away, almost fell, and seized Campaspe’s waist again. “I couldn’t! The Nameless Ones forbid it!”
    â€œIt would be bestiality for me too, little ape-hips,” she laughed. “But what’s a war for, if not to loosen a few rules here and there? Eh, Sarge?”
    â€œOnly fucking reason I know.”
    â€œI knew a gal in the Seventh who liked to do it with dogs,” Antiope said. “Big ones, of course. Mastiffs. So oneday she…” And she went on to relate a story so crude that Will flushed red as her jacket. The others laughed like horses, first at the story and then at his embarrassment.
    F or hours they coursed over the countryside, straight as falcons and almost as fast. By slow degrees, Will grew accustomed to Campaspe’s badinage. She didn’t mean anything by it, he realized. But she was young and in a war, and flirted out of nervousness. Once again he lay his cheek against her back, and she reached behind her to scratch his head reassuringly. It was then that he noticed the brass badge on her shoulder, and twisted about so he could read it. An image had been worked into the badge, a thin line of moonsilver that glimmered clear and bright by the light of Selene, showing three sword-wielding arms radiant from a common point, like a three-limbed swastika. Will recognized the symbol as the triskelion of the Armies of the Mighty. And he was in their power! He shuddered in revulsion and fear.
    Sergeant Lucasta, galloping near, saw this and shifted the slumbering Esme from one shoulder to the other. “So you’ve caught on at last,” she said. “We’re the wicked baby-eating enemy. And yet, oddly enough, we’re the ones clearing you away from an extremely dangerous situation, rather than your own fucking army. Kind of makes you think, don’t it?”
    â€œIt’s because he’s a civilian, right, Sarge? Not much sport in killing civilians,” Campaspe said.
    â€œThey can’t fight and they can’t shoot,” Antiope threw in. “They’re lucky if they know how to die.”
    â€œFortunately, they have us to do all those things for them.” Sergeant Lucasta held up a hand, and they slowed to a walk. “We should have joined up with the platoon a long time ago.”
    â€œWe haven’t missed’ em,” Antiope said. “I can still see their spoor.”
    â€œAnd smell their droppings,” Campaspe added.
    They had come to a spinney of aspens. “We’ll stop here for a bit and rest,” the sergeant said, “while I work this thing through in my head.”
    Campaspe came to a halt and Will slid gratefully from her back. She took a thermos of coffee from a harness-bag and offered him some.
    â€œI… I have to take a leak,” he said.
    â€œPiss away,” she said carelessly. “You don’t need my permission.” And then, when he started into the woods, “Hey! Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
    Again Will flushed, remembering how casually his companions had voided themselves during the night, dropping turds behind them even as they conversed. “My kind needs privacy,” he said, and plunged into the brush.
    Behind him, he heard Campaspe say, “Well, la-de-da!” to the extreme amusement of her comrades.
    Deep into the spinney he went, until he could no longer hear the centaurs talking. Then he unzipped and did his business against the side of a pale slim tree. Briefly, he considered slipping away. The woods were his element, even as open terrain favored the centaurs. He could pass swiftly and silently through underbrush that would slow them to a walk and bury himself so cunningly in the fallen leaves of the forest floor that they would never find him. But did he dare leave Esme with them? Centaurs had no bathroom manners to