Several thick, hard pieces shifted beneath the bandages. Their broken edges were rough, catching and grinding against each other. He could feel the resistance clearly as he pulled away the strips of cloth.
Kraft felt that they didn't seem like the facial bones of those not-very-sturdy creatures. The part at the bridge of the nose in particular—the area made up of the nasal septum cartilage and a cluster of small, thin bones—should have shattered more thoroughly than Lego bricks dropped on the floor after a single blow. There shouldn't have been enough left to keep its shape.
The texture was more like a nonmetallic stab-resistant face shield, a few centimeters thick, smashed into pieces by Kup. Kraft nodded with satisfaction. Whatever his technique was like, he'd managed to be fast, accurate, and ruthless.
The bandage-like strips had been wrapped in several messy layers. Dirt had built up on the surface until it formed a crust, clearly left unchanged for a long time. The timely follow-up blow had made the face look even worse. Despite the severity of the open wound, there wasn't much blood. Only some of the strips had been dampened by fluid.
Kraft had to abandon the idea of unwrapping the cloth from the front. He felt around behind the head, hoping to find where it had been knotted and secured.
He followed the skull back past the external occipital protuberance. Beneath it was a tight knot, with no loose end; whoever had wrapped it didn't seem to have intended to undo it. Still not understanding, he moved his hand lower and tried to lift the neck, turning its stiff-looking shape so he could cut the knot directly.
Below the occipital bone, near the atlantoaxial joint, he felt neither moving vertebrae nor flesh. A strange, hard plate blocked