The strong do what they like, and the weak endure what they must. Jaeger understood that, at least, it was the most common rule among the Lowrian sects. If nothing else, this at least confirmed the creature’s allegiance.

  It started to toss the knife between its hands.

  “Now, are you going to speak? Or suffer?”

  The first step of a successful hunt was to know your opponent, but rarely did they seem poised to offer the information firsthand. He knew that to miss this chance could cost him his life.

  “What are you?”

  It cocked its head and hummed.

  “I am new and yet old. A piece of a larger collective that desires nothing but has been offered so much. I am no one, but could be anyone.” Its voice changed from this ragged voice to Milo’s in an instant. “I’m your best mate, black marketer, and purveyor of the finest things a trench hunter like you could want.

  “But I imagine you don’t ask about me personally.” Its voice returned to its wet, recovering gurgle; the change was more noticeable now, yet Jaeger could not place the voice's familiarity. “No, you ask about my people as we are. We are that which writhes between the filth that is humanity; we are the root of your impurity. A riddle that sits beneath the guise of identity. We are the Hudtyver, or as the Lowrians have taken to calling us, Skin Stealers.”

  So much said and yet very little meant anything to him. The most he got was that this Hudtyver wasn’t a Lowrian experiment and instead an independent race. Useful for command but meaningless in the here and now. It raised a curious question in his mind, and in a bid to buy time, he indulged his curiosity. Now that he knew what it was, and in its own words, where to hurt it, he needed to figure out how. His pistol was loaded, but he’d only get one shot, and it already knew how dangerous it would be.

  “Why did you help me kill that one?” He gestured at the dead creature.

  “If I am to get back behind enemy lines more alive, allies help to sell my story.” It looked at the corpse of its fellow and shrugged. “It was feral and unable to ascertain my form or hold its own. Had it been able to, we would not be speaking.”

  As it said, speaking Jaeger finally recognized the voice it was becoming. It was his own. Something of this revelation must have shown on his face because the being laughed.

  “Ah, you see now.” It edged forward, a slow, measured pace. “I was not speaking for curiosity’s sake alone; I needed something.”

  “Why?”

  “Monosyllabic again? No matter, I have enough.” It leaned forward, its free hand flexing and growing claws as its stance became predatory. “As a final farewell to my best mate, I shall answer. When I took this one, I took his entire body unharmed, including his vocal chords, and did not need to practice. But you, you strike me as a being who will not go down easily. I didn’t lie when I said ‘The strong do what they like, and the weak endure what they must.’ I misled you about my true goal, but now with your voice, my own, I think I shall take the skin to match.”

  With that, it flew through the air, claws poised for the kill. Jaeger shadowed it backwards as it came down, narrowly avoiding its clawed hand. Grabbing his pistol by its barrel, he smashed its heavy pommel into the Skin Stealer’s knife hand. A crack rang out, and the knife dropped from a now broken hand. It gave him no chance to go for it as it laughed and renewed its assault, charging forward, arms coming from the sides like a pincer.

  Jaeger stepped into its assault and shouldered it. He shoved the barrel of his pistol under its chin. As soon as he did, he was pushed away, barely maintaining his grip on the pistol as he crashed into the wall away from the creature. He surged up from the wall and was met by the charging figure; this time, its claws held before it to impale him.

  He took a breath, felt his blood start to race in his body, shifted his grip on his pistol, and then acted. With a quick step forward, he built some momentum, then shot backwards, meeting the wall with a short step up it. As the hudtyver reached him, Jaeger sprang a few steps up the wall before jumping off and hammering the pommel of his into the forehead of the monster. With his blood pushing his body beyond its limits, the blow would have been like being hit by a maul.

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  The hudtyver went flying backwards down the tunnel, rolling through the dirt and bumping against the walls. Landing Jaeger watched it, even as he crouched to retrieve the fallen trench knife; nothing was more dangerous than a wounded creature.

  “Ah, majestic. A hunter is a hunter, even when besot by despair. I should not have underestimated you.”

  From further down the tunnel, Jaeger’s voice called out to him. Then came the sound of rushing footsteps, followed by the creature, now even more otherworldly in appearance. Despite its calm speaking tone, the damage done to it seemed extensive. Its head was no longer human in appearance, revealing the creature’s alien nature. The skull seemed to have shifted and now jutted backwards like it had been stretched, a purposeful change because the mouth had extended, consuming its nose, and now protruded forward. Its eyes had changed, becoming less organic and more jewel like, gleaming with an internal, foul light. Its once pristine Beserian uniform was crumpled, covered in no small amount of black blood, and had outgrowths of bone ripping through it.

  As it stepped closer, its head seemed to split as its mouth opened, revealing a maw full of sharp, triangular teeth.

  “Do you like this? It is as close to my true form as this meat will allow.” Hearing his voice come from this clearly inhuman abomination was disquieting for the hunter. “You should count yourself lucky, you are the first to have viewed this; alas, you shall not live to spread word of its glory.”

  It scuttled forward, its movements jittery and hard to track, but being its target, Jaeger was ready for its pounce. As it leapt, he aimed his knife at its upper chest and missed, the knife ripping through its throat. The thing landed on him and knocked him to the ground, its full weight atop him. His head bounced off the ground, and were it not for his rushing blood, he’d have been dazed. Instead, he was ready when it opened its jaws and bit at his face, shoving a long and battered rifle between its gaping maw. The fight had taken them back to where the creature’s facade was broken, and it discarded Milo’s bayonetted rifle; even in death, his friend was helping him.

  The struggle between the two didn’t last long because the monster still had its hands free and used them. A sharp, piercing pain shot through Jaeger’s sides as the monster stabbed him deep with its claws. He felt the claws go in deep and then withdrew. The creature placed its feet on his chest and kicked him. The action of driving the air from his lungs. It landed a foot away and held up its claws, covered not only in blood but also in small flaps of his skin. The creature smiled, opened its impossibly wide mouth, and consumed the skin, blood, and all.

  “Delicious. I see now why I was told not to consume your body’s whole; you Beserians are addictive in taste.” A long, slimy tongue whipped out of its mouth and licked its claws clean. “A shame I could not taste Milo, had I only known of this taste then.”

  Jaeger could feel the bleeding in his sides slowing; the pain and loss of blood were strong but not life-threatening. He moved, struggling to sit up against the wall, checking Milo’s rifle as he did. The creature continued its gloating, but he was no longer listening. The moment the creature had consumed his blood, it was dead; he didn’t like the CC’s, but when they said his blood was deadly to everyone but one of Beseria’s Blut Sotilas or their creators, he believed them.

  “Yes, I think I shall find your squad and eat them next. Then, while I’ve…when I’ve… I’ve infiltrated, I sure…I shall… shall begin a…” Jaeger’s voice, the creature’s copy of it at least, grew more strained and groggy. It was interesting to the hunter to see how his blood would affect something like this; in humans, it caused an immediate and painful death. In this creature, it seemed to be a slower and insidious poison. “Cough…cough… What is this?”

  The creature hacked up a mouthful of black ooze and then tasted it.

  “Delicious.”

  With that, it began to rip into its body, tearing off chunks of its human skin and its more alien innards. Jaeger watched as it slowly ate itself, listening to its frenzied cries of ecstasy and declarations of ‘deliciousness’. As it ate more and more of itself, going from handfuls of skin to handfuls of black and gray organs, its speed did not slow. As it neared death, a mouthful at a time, its frenzy grew as though it knew it was running out of its meal.

  After what felt like hours of watching, he finally moved. Getting to his feet, Jaeger reaffirmed the charge in Milo’s rifle and walked forward. His measured pace went ignored by the bloody skeletal remains of the still feeding creature. The creature’s body was all but gone, just wet bones held together by loose and ragged muscles, its head the last, mostly untouched, piece of its anatomy.

  Standing above the creature, he feels nothing, not satisfaction nor sadness. So he raises his rifle, places the barrels against its head and fires, blasting the remnant of this creature, splattering what little of it was left across the floor.

  “We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. In its embrace, we fight for a free Beseria; in its absence, we rest knowing our duty is done. Only in death do we ever know its absence. For we are Blut Sotilas, the blood soldiers of Beseria. Rest in peace, Milo.”