Valentine's Rising (Page 3)

Magazine Mountain, Arkansas, January of the forty-ninth year of the Kurian Order: A Southern Command Station Post once stood here, huts and wooden cabins placed to take advantage of folds in the ground and the canopy of trees for concealment and defensibility.

Servicemen walking about on their duties added life and color to the camouflaged buildings. The Guards, the common soldiers in their neat charcoal gray uniforms and regimental kepis, would march past files of scarecrow-lean Wolves in fringed buckskins. The Wolves, rifles cradled in tanned fingers, assorted pistols and knives shoved in belts and boots, and no two hats alike, struck one as sloppy-looking when compared to the disciplined Guards. A Cat might be sleeping beneath an oak, head pillowed on rolled coat and Reaper-killing sword, exhausted after two months spying in the Kurian Zone, but still coming to full wakefulness at a gentle tap. Everyone from cur dog to colonel of the Guards would make room when teams of Bears entered the post. Southern Command's shock troops, wearing uniforms of patched-together Grog hide and bullet-ablative Reaper cloak, the latter's black teeth hanging from neck or ear, were people one instinctively avoided. Perhaps it was the forbidding war paint, or the scalps of Grogs and even Quislings dangling from belt and rifle sheath, or the thousand-yard stare, but whatever the source the Bears had an aura about them demanding a wide berth. Then there were the others in camp, the logistics commandos: scroungers who went into the Kurian Zone to steal or trade for what Southern Command couldn't make for itself, driving their wagons to the commissary yards and yelling at women to get their children out of their mule team's path. There were always civilians in camp, families of the soldiery or refugees waiting on transportation to other parts of the Freehold. There would be pack traders and mail-riders, gunsmiths, charcoal sellers with black hands, hunters trading in game for more bullets and farmers selling vegetables for government buckchits. It was chaos, but chaos that somehow kept the soldiery fed and equipped, the civilians prosperous (by the standards of the Free Territory) and, most importantly, the Ozarks free of the Reapers.

But that was before.

By that dark, wet winter of '71, the base of Magazine Mountain had only rats and raccoons standing sentry over burned huts or nosing through old field kitchens that smelled of rancid cooking oil. Bats huddled together for warmth in SCPO mailboxes, and the carts and pickup trucks rested wheelless on the ground, stripped like slaughtered cattle.

Heavy equipment rendered inoperable had a large red X painted on it. The same might be done with maps depicting the Ozark Free Territory.

* * * *

"Goddammit, another fallen tree ahead," Post called from a rise in the road. He turned his horse and looked at Valentine for orders. One of Ahn-Kha's scouting Grogs squatted to rest.

"We might do better off the trail," Narcisse said to Valentine from her perch in the Quickwood wagon. Joints of horsemeat hung from a frame Jefferson had added to the wagon bed. It was too cool for flies. "These roads are almost as bad."

Smalls' son took the opportunity to put a taconite pellet in his wrist-rocket, a surgical tubing sling that he used to bring down squirrels. The boy ventured into the trees while Valentine thought. David looked at Ahn-Kha, who was sniffing the wintry air.

"Rain soon," Ahn-Kha said.

"The Magazine Mountain Station can't be far," Valentine said to Post. "Let's pull off the trail and camp."

There had been no more Reapers since leaving the house. The refugees Valentine led made agonizingly slow progress through the ridges of the Ouachitas, with occasional halts to hide at the sound of distant engines. They had seen no living human-though they had come across a Reaper-drained skeleton lodged in the crotch of a tree, giving Mrs. Smalls a warmer coat once it was pulled off the corpse and cleaned. A pack of stranger-shy dogs tailed them, exploring the surroundings of the campfire and digging up the camp's sanitary holes in search of choice snacks. Valentine had tried to tempt them closer with fresher food than something that had already passed through the human digestive system, but the dogs would have none of it. Every now and then he saw a wary, furry face appear on the road behind, proving that they were still being tailed. Valentine wanted the dogs with them. Dogs hated Reapers-or feared them-and usually whined or bayed an alarm if one was near.

Valentine waved Ahn-Kha and Post over.

"Sir?" Post asked.

Valentine looked up at the flat-topped loom of Magazine Mountain. "Post, we're near one of the big camps of Southern Command. I'm going to take Ahn-Kha and see what, if anything, is left. Pull off out of sight of the road, cover your tracks and camp. We'll go on foot; give the horses a rest."

"Chances are that fort's in Kurian hands."

"I know. That's why I'm bringing Ahn-Kha. Having a Grog along might confuse them long enough for me to talk my way loose, or get the jump on a patrol."

"How long you figure on being gone?"

"Less than a day. If twenty-four hours go by and you don't hear from us, act as you will. I'd say the Boston Mountains are your best chance, on the other side of the Arkansas River. If there's anything left of Southern Command, it should be there. Get the Quickwood to them. Don't forget the seeds."

Post fingered the pouch around his neck, identical to Valentine's, though it didn't contain any mahjong pieces. "I'll see it through, Val."

"Thank you. I'll probably be back in time for horsemeat and flatbread."

He took Ahn-Kha over to the supply wagon. They each threw a bag made out of old long-sleeved shirts over their shoulders. The shirt-sacks contained bread. Mr. Smalls rose from where he squatted next to his wife.

"Everything all right with you two?" Valentine asked them.

"Just a little tired, Mr. Ghost," Mrs. Smalls said, her belly prominent through the opening in the coat.

"We're stopping for a day or two. Fix yourselves up under the bed of the wagon. Looks like we might get some rain."

"Hank's been picking up sharp quartz crystals; there's lots of them in these hills," Mr. Smalls said. "If we attach 'em to the front of those wooden spear points, they might serve you a little better." He reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out a spear point.

Valentine looked at it. The boy had set a piece of quartz into the front, carving the wood into four prongs, like a gem-holder on a ring. Valentine tested the point on the quartz. It was sharp enough. "How'd he fix the quartz in so tight?"

"He soaked the wood after he carved it," Mrs. Smalls said proudly. "When it dried, it shrank down on the crystal."

"Good thinking," Valentine replied, handing it to Ahn-Kha for his opinion. The Golden Ones were accomplished craftsmen in their own right.

"This is fine work," Ahn-Kha agreed, fingering the point.

"Have him make some more, if he can," Valentine said.

Smalls nodded, and Valentine led Ahn-Kha off. They watched the Smalls boy search the tree limbs, but the squirrels were making themselves scarce. "Smart kid. In the Wolves we used to take boys on patrols, called them 'aspirants." That spear point alone would have got him a place with my company."

"He thinks quickly. Remember what he did with the wagon."

"We could use another sharp set of eyes," Valentine said. "Want to bring him along?"

"He'd have a better chance at a squirrel with us," Ahn-Kha replied, his long ears twisting this way and that.

"Settled," Valentine said. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. "Hey, Hank, come over here."

The boy ran up to them. "Yes, Mr. Ghost?"

"We're going out on an all-night scout. You want to come?"

"Yes, sir!" Hank answered, his voice breaking with excitement.

"Go on, ask your parents. If it's okay with them, catch up to us."

"Thanks, Mr. Ghost," the boy said, and ran off toward the wagon.

Valentine and Ahn-Kha moved off into the woods. After a hundred yards, Valentine touched Ahn-Kha's shoulder.

"Time for his first lesson," Valentine said. "Keep going."

Valentine held his sheathed knife in his hand and waited next to the trail. Ahn-Kha disappeared into the brush, leaving a Grog-wide trail. Soon he heard the boy's footsteps as Hank ran to catch up with Ahn-Kha's furry back.

As Hank passed, Valentine stepped out from behind the tree. Quick as a Reaper, he got the slim youth in the fold of his left arm and put the sheathed knife to the boy's throat. Hank let out a squeal of fear.

"Just me, Hank," Valentine said, releasing him. "Don't pass so close to trees big enough to hide somebody"

"You didn't have to grab me!" Hank said.

"Your heart beating hard?" Valentine asked.

"Yeah. I don't like being grabbed."

"Then move a little more carefully when you're going through the woods. Long time ago, over on the other side of Arkansas, some friends and I weren't. They're both dead. The Hood stepped right out from behind the tree and grabbed

Gil, as easily as you'd pick up a rabbit knocked out with your slingshot."

"Hood? That's another word for a Reaper, right? We were supposed to call them Visors."

"Do you know how it all works, Hank?"

"I know the Vis-the Reapers drink blood."

"A Reaper's like a puppet. There's another person pulling the strings. We call them Kurians because they're from another world, a planet called Kur. They use the Reapers to feed because it's less dangerous for them when they get the energy. The donor puts up a fight."

"That energy they get, it's something in us, right? Like our souls?" Hank said.

Valentine felt as if the boy had kicked him in the stomach. He thought back to the graves of his parents, brother and sister who fell in Minnesota when he was eleven. He had asked Father Max if their souls had been eaten. "Nobody knows. Yes, it's something humans have more of than other creatures. The man who raised me called it an 'aura." There's more aura in an intelligent being than there is in a dog or something. That's why they feed on us."

"We walked past a Reaper once on an Honor Guard march. They had us out burning down houses. It didn't move. Just looked at us dead cold. Reminded me of a snake sitting on a rock."

"Dead cold, all right," Valentine agreed.

"So that's why everyone's scared all the time now. They're afraid the Reapers will get them."

"That's why people cooperate with them. The people who serve them get badges, or cards, or pieces of jewelry that mean the Reapers can't touch them."

Hank nodded. "Yeah, we heard some of that in Honor Guard. Our Top Guardian had some sorta certificate that signified his family was too important to reassign. I hated him, Dallas trash if ever there was."

"You grew up here in the Ozarks, right?"

"Yes, in the borders. My pa would go out into Texas and steal, or trade for horses. He sorta worked for Southern

Command; at least they gave him stuff when he brought horses in."

"You remember what the Free Territory used to be like, right?"

"Yes, it all happened last spring, or last summer, really. I heard a lot of fighting. Then there were new people in charge. My pa was in Texas at the time; when he got back he said we had to do what they say for a while."

"You liked it better before they came, right?"

"Yes. Momma was happier. She hated it when Pa was in Texas though."

"I was gone for a couple of years myself. Now that I'm back I'm trying to find if there's any Free Territory left."

"Are we going to live there? Is there anywhere safe now?"

"I hope so, Hank. If there is, we'll find it."

* * * *

They were refilling their water skins at a trickle when Ahn-Kha came back from his scout of the old camp.

"Everything's burnt out, my David. Picked clean. Lots of holes in the ground. If there were buried weapons, I'd say they've been dug up."

"No one there?"

"Tracks. I smelled urine."

"You speak really well, for a big stoop," Hank said.

Ahn-Kha stood straight, towering over the boy. "We call ourselves the Golden Ones. I grew up trading with men in Omaha. I translated for my people when I was David's age."

"What's old for a stoop?"

Ahn-Kha's ears folded flat against his head.

"About forty years older than you're going to get if you call him a 'stoop' again," Valentine said.

"You can call me Ahn-Kha, or Uncle, if that's too hard for you to pronounce."

"Uncle? My ma would smack me if I called a ... Golder Ones my uncle."

Valentine decided to change the subject. "Hank," he asked, "what kind of scrounger are you?"

"Haven't had many chances. We'd just burn when we'd go out on the Honor Guard sweeps."

Valentine picked up a stick and put three parallel scores in the ground. He added a fourth, under them and perpendicular to the other three. "That's a mark for a cache. You know what a cache is?"

"Ummm..."

"It's a hiding spot. The mark would be on a tree or a rock. See if you can find one as we walk. Chances are it would be out at the edge of the camp. We're all going to go in and have a look around."

The crossed a series of gullies and came upon the camp, folded into the base of the mountain in the broken ground there.

The camp was in ruins, inhabited only by the memories in Valentine's mind. The Quonset huts were gone, the shacks and cabins burned to the ground. The smaller branches of many of the trees in camp were black-barked where the flames had caught them. Valentine saw again the old faces of his platoon, remembering the smiles of his men over mugs of beer in the canteen and Sergeant Gator's slow, easy laugh. He was a Ghost haunting a Southern Command graveyard, and in a few more years there wouldn't be anything left to mark a place where legends lived.

Ahn-Kha picked up a handful of dirt at one of the burned cabins and let it trickle through his hands, sniffing it. "Jellied gasoline," the Grog said. "Bad way to die."

Valentine kept an eye on Hank, who was examining tree bark.

"Is there a good death?"

"Among my people's warriors, we have a saying." A good death can come through battle, at a place that is remembered. A better death can come through heroism, sacrificing yourself in the saving of others. The best death comes late, after seeing grandchildren born, for then you've also had a life.""

"There's a lot to admire in Golden One wisdom. Beats dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori."

"What is that?"

"A phrase from Latin: 'It is a sweet and proper thing, to die for one's country." That kind of death's neither sweet nor proper. Just ugly. Necessary sometimes, but not sweet and proper."

The allies stood in silence for a moment.

"It will be dark soon," Ahn-Kha offered as a change in subject.

"I don't want to sleep here. Let's make a camp farther up on the mountain. Somewhere we can hear."

"We could make it back to the wagon if we hurried."

Valentine found Hank's footsteps with hard ears. "I don't want to travel with the boy at night. I can hide my lifesign, and you don't show as human. Hank might get sensed if there are any more of those loose Hoods around."

"That was odd, to run across three masterless ones. Do you suppose that many Kurians died when they fought here last summer?"

"I hope so."

Valentine was getting tired of hoping. Ever since returning to the Ozarks, his hopes had been vanishing from his mental horizon like a series of desert mirages. Hopes that his Quickwood would make a difference in the war. Hopes that he might be able to return to the Caribbean, where Mali Carrasca was carrying his child-or daughter, according to Narcisse. Hopes that they'd find some vestige of Southern Command still in these hills. But if there was still hope to be found, it wasn't at Magazine Mountain.

* * * *

Valentine ate his flavorless bread, and tried not to think of the plentiful fruits and vegetables of the Caribbean. Ahn-Kha was occupying Hank with the story of the Golden Ones' battle against the General in Omaha.

"They would have rolled over us. But our Ghost found the railroad cars filled with the men who were operating the Reaper soldiers. He blew up some, burned the others where they were parked. The Reapers didn't go wild, like the ones with the horses; they just dropped in their tracks. Took the heart out of the rest of the General's men; they were used to having the Reapers at the front of the fight. In the confusion my brothers broke their chains and rose against them. But if it weren't for David, wounded twice-"

Valentine tossed a pebble at the Golden One. "Don't leave out the other details. Be sure to tell him how I almost had my head shot off," Valentine said, rubbing his aching leg. He pointed to the scar on his face. "An inch closer and the bullet would have taken the side of my face with it. Don't leave out the part where you found me in an interrogation cell, with my pants full of shit and a gun to my head. Ahn-Kha was the one who killed the General, Hank. I had a pair of handcuffs on at the time."

"Just wanted to know how you became friends," Hank said. "The sto-the Grogs I've seen don't mix with men."

"Grog is a word that covers a lot of territory, Hank. It's a term for the beings the Kurians brought to our world. Or maybe made, nobody knows, though the guys at the Miskatonic have some interesting theories. Technically you, a dog, and an oyster are all animals, but your similarities pretty much end there. Same with the Grogs. Some are as smart as Ahn-Kha, who's smarter than most men I know, but some aren't any brighter than a catfish. I think you're talking about the Grey Ones, like the Lucky Pair."

"Your ape things with thick ol' hides? They're called Grey Ones?"

"In my tongue, yes," Ahn-Kha said.

"The ones the Kurians use carry long guns. Fifty calibers," Valentine said.

" 'They'll take your head off at a thousand yards with 'em too, if you're fool enough to show yourself and not be movin'," a voice called from the darkness. "That's what Sergeant Samuels used to say, anyway."

Valentine came to his feet, hand on his pistol. He looked up to see a shaggy man in buckskins, coonskin cap on his head and a sheathed rifle cradled in his arms. Valentine noticed his hand was inside the sheath, though, gripping it so he could get at the trigger easily. Nearly half of the man's face was covered with a stiff leather patch, but the remaining eye was familiar.

"Finner?" Valentine asked. "Jess Finner?" Valentine suddenly felt like a sore-footed recruit again; he almost came to attention with chest thrown out.

Finner's eye took in the whole campsite, not resting on any one spot for more than a fraction of a second. "Yep. Was Sergeant Finner, Tango Company, up to a few months ago. Last time I saw you, Valentine, you were eating a watermelon the size of an anker of rum in Missouri. Heard you got a commission in Zulu Company under Captain LeHavre. He still alive, I hope?"

"I don't know. I'm no longer a Wolf. You look hungry, Jess. You want to come down and have a bite?"

"Maybe. If I do, know that you've got three rifles on each of you."

"Stand down, Sergeant," Valentine said. "I don't want an accidental shooting."

"Been watching your little procession for the better part of a day. Recognized you by the hair, at first. Limp's new. Saw you break off and thought it was time for a chat. I'm a bit curious about what you're doing out in the woods with a Grog, Valentine. What kind of rig are you wearing? That's not a Guard uniform."

"Its mostly a Coastal Marine uniform, dyed black. The bandolier is from a snake."

"Must have been some snake. Be more impressed if you had some friendly insignia, Valentine."

"Technically I'm a captain now, Sergeant, though you'll have to go on faith for that. I couldn't prove it any better to you than I could prove why I'm out here with a Grog. His name's Ahn-Kha, and he also outranks you. I've been out of the Free Territory for better than two years. Sort of a Logistics Commando operation."

"The boy?"

"Just a refugee. None of us are out here for fun. I'm trying to find any kind of Southern Command organization. If you can turn us over to one, I'd be obliged."

Finner took his hand out of the sheath. "No longer a Wolf, eh? Ain't no such thing, Valentine. Once you've looked into the eyes of Father Wolf, you're one until the day you die." He pushed the cap back on his head, revealing a greasy forehead. "Hell, whatever you are, it's good to see you again, Captain, sir," Finner said, holding up his hand palm outward in the Wolf salute. "I'm running with what's left of Southern Command here in the Ouachitas. If you want to meet the boys, just say so. They're only a couple hilltops away."

"I'll say so," Valentine said. "Ahn-Kha, take Hank and find the others. Tell them to camp quietly for another day, and wait for me. This should be the end of our trail."

* * * *

"How did it happen, Jess?" Valentine said, as they walked in the loom of Magazine Mountain. The radio antennae Valentine remembered atop the rock-faced cliffs were gone.

Finner must have answered the question before to other fragments of Southern Command, searching for higher command like children looking for a missing parent. The words came out in a practiced, steady beat.

"Not sure. I was recruiting up in the Northwoods. Wisconsin this time, same's I do every year since you met me. It was August. Hottest one I can remember in a while, even up there. We had a little temporary camp south of La Crosse, where we picked up some food courtesy of the underground, and the boatmen said there'd been barges full of men brought across the Mississippi. Our lieutenant thought we'd better not try for the Free Territory until we knew which path was safe. He sent out scouts. Only one came back, and he said the riverbank south of St. Louis was crawling with Grogs. Captain Dorn finally showed up, and he left it up to us. We could scatter up north, or try to get through to the Ozarks. Most tried, a few recruits even. Well, they were right, the hills were crawling. We got picked up by some of those flying shit-eaters, and the harpies put the big ones on us. Legworms barreling through the brush like tanks with Grogs picking us off right and left as we ran. It was a massacre. No other word for it. I made it out, running south. Came across a week-old battlefield on the Crowley Ridge; our men were hanging in trees everywhere, getting picked at by crows. "Round there I think I got some bad water, picked up a bug. Woke up in a hayloft; some farmers had found me wandering. Said I had a fever, babbled. I was about twenty pounds thinner. This family said the Kurians were running the show now, but they'd heard there was still fighting in the Ouachitas down by Hot Springs. Let's take a break."

Firmer sat down and Valentine joined him, rubbing his tired left leg. Finner passed him a little stainless-steel flask. Valentine smelled the contents and shook his head, handing it back.

"I'd lost my blade and my gun while I was sick. When I felt well enough to move on they gave me a bagful of food and made me promise to say I got it in another village if I got caught. I ran into three deserters trying to make their way to the mountains in Kentucky, they said it was all over for the Ozarks. We'd been hit from everywhere-including up. They flew over at the beginning, dropping wild Reapers. Called 'em 'sappers." I guess there were hundreds of 'em loose at one point."

"I've seen them. They're still running these hills."

Finner wiped his brow. "Southern Command had to send out teams of Wolves and Bears to deal with the sappers. Not enough reserves when the real attack came, though they tell me it wouldn't have made a difference."

"So when did you reach the Ouachitas?"

"Last summer. Gotta warn you, we're an ad hoc unit. Every man's there because he wants to be there; no parades or drill or courts-martial. Not enough supply to do anything but keep us alive. The fighting we do is purely to keep from getting captured. I wouldn't throw that 'captain' title around; the General wouldn't like it, unless he puts you on his staff."

"General who?" Valentine disliked it when someone was known only by the title "General." It reminded him of the leader of the Twisted Cross.

"Martinez. Twelfth Guards, formerly."

"Don't know him."

Valentine felt the darkness coming on. The air took on a wet chill.

"He wasn't a general before. He was colonel of the Twelfth."

"They had the tiger-striped kepis. Orange and black, usually stationed in the Arkansas Gap."

"Yup. Got the hell knocked out of them by troops coming in from Texas. That's who's running the Fort Scott area and the Ouachitas. Texans and Oklahomans. They must've stripped the Dallas Corridor bare; they say the invasion was over a hundred thousand men."

"How are they feeding them? Aren't guerillas hitting the supply lines? When I was in Zulu that was supposed to be our catastrophe assignment."

"Can't say. I spend my time scavenging, not on ops or recon. I've seen low-draft barges coming up the Arkansas. Cattle and rice."

"I came through northeast Texas. I thought the patrols looked slim."

"Yeah, the Ks in Texas think big. They're supposed to get a chunk of the Ouachitas. But there's some new bigshot organizing things out of the ruins in Little Rock. That's who's really running things hereabouts now. A man, if you can believe it. Ol' Satan and his gang of Kurians."

"Satan?"

"Solon. Consul Solon, his papers say."

* * * *

Valentine's nose told him they were approaching the camp before they came across the lookouts. Latrine discipline wasn't a priority for this particular remnant of Southern Command.

"So this is what defeat smells like," Valentine said.

"It's not that bad. You get used to it. Hush, now, we're coming up on the pickets."

They were still in uniform, more or less. Mottled camouflage pants and gray winter-uniform tunics, many with hunting vests thrown over them; scarves and gloves made out of scrap cloth. Similarities ended at the extremities; there were a variety of hats, gloves and boots. Some of the men had resorted to cobbled-together shoes or sheepskin moccasins. A boy with a hunting bow whistled from atop a rock, and four men drew beads on them.

"It's Finner with a new 'un," one of the men said.

"Found a stray in the hills," Finner said. "Wolf, I know him personally, I'll vouch to the captain." Valentine wondered why he didn't mention Ahn-Kha or Hank.

"Then report to him," the one who recognized him said.

They passed the pickets, who dispersed again as soon as they moved up the hillside for the camp. Valentine's nose added other camp smells to the list headed by men shitting in the woods: smoke, tobacco, open-pit cooking and pigs. He heard a guitar playing somewhere; it drifted softly through the trees like a woman's laugh. To Valentine it seemed forever since last fall's wagon train, when he'd enjoyed the music of the Texans under the stars.

"Why didn't you mention the others?" Valentine asked.

"Didn't want your Grog friend hunted down. Standing orders, no alien prisoners."

"He's not a prisoner, he's an ally. He's worth those four pickets, and another six like them."

"All the more reason to keep him alive. Quislings we bury, but dead Grogs get stewed down to pig feed."

They topped a flat little rise, thickly wooded like most of the Ouachita Mountains, overshadowed by another hill whose summit was scarred with limestone on the face toward the camp hill. Valentine saw watch posts under camouflage netting among the trees of the taller hill. Tents were everywhere, interspersed with hammocks and stacked stones to hold supplies and equipment clear of the wet ground, along with little shacks and huts put together from everything from camper tops to bass boats. Evil-smelling trash filled the bottom of every ravine. There was no signage, no evidence of any kind of unit groupings. It reminded Valentine of some of the shanty towns he'd seen in the

Caribbean, minus the cheerful coloring and kids playing. The men sat in little groups of four to ten, trying to get in a last game of cards by firelight. Valentine passed a still every sixty paces, or so it seemed, all bubbling away and emitting sharp resinous smells, tended by men filling squared-off glass bottles.

"Welcome home, Captain Valentine," Finner said.

This wasn't home. Not nearly. It looked more like an oversize, drunken snipe hunt. "Thanks."

"If you want some companionship, just look for one of the gal's tents with a paper lantern out front. They get food, washwater and protection as long as they're willing to share the bed once in a while. Sort of a fringe benefit of this outfit."

"Does this 'outfit' ever fight a battle?"

"We do a lot of raiding. General has us grab the new currency they're using here; we use it to buy some of the stuff we need from smugglers."

"Sounds more like banditry. Do you get overflown?"

"If the gargoyles come overhead, they only see a few fires. We don't try'n knock 'em out of the sky. We figure they just think there're refugees up here. We're far enough from Fort Scott so's they don't care, and the folks on the east side of the mountains have enough to do just controlling the flatlands."

"Many refugees?"

"No, unless they're Southern Command we send 'em elsewhere."

"Where's that?"

"Anywhere but here. That's part of what we were doing when I came across you and the boy and the Grog, keeping an eye out for runaways to warn 'em off. We got these higher hills around to cut the lifesign, but you never know when a Reaper'll be trailing along behind some broke-dicks to see where they're headed."

Voices rose to an excited roar from an opening in the trees, and Valentine's hand went to his pistol.

"Get him, Greggins!" someone shouted.

Finner shrugged. "Sounds like a fight. Interested?"

Valentine scowled and followed Finner downhill to a ring of men. Someone came running with a burning firework. In its blue-white glare he saw forty or fifty men in a circle, expanding and contracting around the action in the center like a sphincter. Valentine heard thudding fists, punctuated by roars from the crowd when an especially good blow was struck. He saw a few women among the men, some on top of the men's shoulders angling for a better view.

Instincts took over, even in the unknown camp. He elbowed his way through the press. "Make a hole!" he growled, then realized that Coastal Marine slang didn't mean much in the Ozarks. The crowd surged back around him and Valentine found himself with the back of one of the combatants sagging against him.

"No fair, that guy's holding him up," someone shouted.

A bloody-browed Guard corporal looked at Valentine over his scuffed knuckles. "Pull off, mister, otherwise he can't go down."

Valentine turned the soldier sagging against him, saw the bruised ruin of a face, then let go his grip. The man sagged to his knees, mumbling something in Spanish.

"Knees ain't down. Finish him, Greggins!"

The corporal stepped forward, corded muscles bulging from his rolled-up sleeves.

Valentine held up a hand. "It's over, Corporal. I'd say you won."

"What're you, his manager? Fight's not over until he's flat. He questioned my authority."

Valentine looked at the beaten man's uniform. "I see sergeant's stripes on him, Corporal. If I were you I'd be worried about a court-martial for striking your superior. Even if he were a private, a fistfight isn't the way we keep discipline."

Something in Valentine's voice made the man lower his fists.

"Now help him to his feet and get him to a medic. Better have him look at you as well. That eye doesn't look good."

The corporal took a step forward, then lashed out with a roundhouse. Valentine was ready for it, and slipped under the blow. He brought a driving knee up into the corporal's off-balance stance, and hammered him in the kidney with an elbow as the corporal doubled over. The corporal dropped, his mouth open in a silent scream.

Valentine looked at the circled men, not quite sure what they had seen in the blur of motion. "This how you do things now? Is there a sergeant in this circus?"

A man with a handlebar mustache stepped forward. "I'm a captain, Eighteenth Guards, East Texas Heavy Weapons. Who are you?"

"He's logistics, just come outta Texas, Randolph," Finner said.

"Don't see a uniform."

"I find my duties in the Kurian Zone easier to perform if I don't wear a Southern Command uniform, Captain." Valentine said, and a few of the men chuckled.

"I don't care for spies," Randolph said.

Valentine got the feeling Randolph wanted to see if he could be provoked into another exchange of blows. He reduced lifesign-the old mental technique that also did wonders for his temper.

"I know him, sir," Finner said. "Good man. Wolf officer."

"Disperse, damn you," Randolph said, rounding on the men. "Fight's over. Get some sleep." He turned back to Valentine. "Is that so? We'd better get you to the General, Captain, so he can decide what to do with you. We shoot spies trying to penetrate the camp, you know."

The men helped the brawlers to their feet. Randolph jerked his chin and put his hand on his pistol holster. Valentine walked off in the indicated direction, and the captain drew his gun. He didn't point it at Valentine, but the muzzle could be brought to bear easily enough.

Finner trailed along behind as they walked. Only Valentine had ears good enough to hear him click the safety off inside his rifle sheath.

* * * *

"The General keeps late hours," Randolph said as they approached a vintage twentieth-century house. Lights burned inside and sentries stood on the porch. Where a swing had once stood, piled sandbags and a machine-gun post dominated the parked vehicles in the yard in front of the house. Valentine smelled a barbecue pit in the backyard.

"We've got a LC just in from Texas to see the General," Randolph said to the lieutenant who appeared at the other side of me screen door. "Or so he says."

"I brought him in," Finner added.

"Thank you, Sergeant, that'll be all," Randolph said.

"Let them in, boys," me lieutenant said. He had golden, braided hair and bare arms protruding through a Reaper-cloak vest hung with pistols and hand grenades. Four red diamonds stood out on the meat of his forearm. Valentine suspected he was a Bear. The lieutenant looked Valentine up and down. "I think I've seen your face. Can't place where though."

"Red River raid, sixty-five. You Bears hit the power plant and armory while two companies of Wolves raided some of the plantations. I was the junior in Zulu Company. Never got your name though."

"Nail's the handle. I was in Team Able. We had a hell of a skedaddle out of Louisiana on mat one, as I remember, Captain ...."

"Ghost is what goes down on me paperwork for me," Valentine said.

Nail held out his hand. "Paperwork. That's rich." They shook. "Nice to see you alive, Ghost. Zulu got caught up in a fight on the Mississippi when all mis started. I don't-"

"We can catch up later, Lieutenant," Randoph interjected. "I'm sure me General would like to hear mis man's report. Colorful as the conversation is with all the Hunter code names." He turned to Valentine. "I take it you're a... hmmm ... Cat?"

Valentine said noming.

"Lots of us have family, beg your pardon, sir," Nail said. "It keeps them safe."

Randolph ignored the Bear and waved over an adjutant. Valentine's gaze followed the adjutant into the dining room of the house, where a long table piled with files and a sideboard covered with half-eaten trays of food and liquor bottles stood under dirty walls. Under a candelabra's light a man in red-striped trousers sat, a coat heavy with chicken guts draped over the chair next to him. He had a massive body and a small, balding head on a thin neck; the odd proportions made Valentine think of a turtle. General Martinez rose and threw on his uniform coat.

"Distractions, nothing but distractions," the General grumbled. He had the most perfectly trimmed Van Dyke Valentine had ever seen, as if he made up for the lack of hair on his head with extra attention to that on his face.

"Sorry to add to them, sir," Valentine said. "I'm looking for Southern Command."

"You're talking to a piece of what's left."

"My name is David Valentine, Cat codename Ghost, on independent assignment. I just came out of the KZ in Texas, sir. There wouldn't be a Lifeweaver associated with your command, would there?"

"They've gone to the tall timber, Cat. They're hunted even more than we are."

"I got jumped just across the Red coming out of Texas. I've got close to twenty mouths to feed and have no idea of what to do with them. Fifteen are trained soldiers, including some Grog scout-snipers. The others are refugees."

"Grogs? What unit has Grogs?"

"Thunderbolt Ad Hoc Rifles," Valentine said. It was near enough to the truth and saved explanations.

"Never heard of them. Still armed?"

General Martinez wasn't curious about what he was bringing in from Texas. Which was just as well. Valentine wasn't ready to trust him with his precious Quickwood. While they wouldn't use it to fuel the stills, it wouldn't be used to hunt Reapers, either. "Yes, sir."

"You said you came out of Texas?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Cat, we could have used a little more warning about what was building."

"I was further south. I only got to Texas-"

Martinez cut him off. "You'd be better off back there. Seems like every Gulag gun's here stamping out the embers."

Doesn't just look like a turtle , Valentine thought Snaps like one too. Then he felt guilty for the thought. He'd been operating outside the military hierarchy for too long: his superior deserved his respect.

"Couldn't make it, sir. I've got some horses that need shoes, and my wagon could use a new team. I was hoping to draw from your commissary. Food and clothing and camp equipment would be helpful."

"None of which I can spare just now," General Martinez said. He paused in thought. "Let's have your team here. You can draw rations from the common pool for now. You'll have to lose the civilians. I've got a militia regiment I'm trying to turn into regulars; you and your veterans'd be a help with them."

"We'll keep heading north, sir. Can someone on your staff show me-"

"No, Valentine. I need every man who can shoulder a gun. We're bringing you in, that's an order. You'll be safer with us."

"I'm responsible for the civilians-I gave my word."

"Fine, we'll provide for them for a few days while we sort this out. I could attach them to a labor company, I suppose." He reached up and rubbed his beard with his knuckles, stroking first one side of it, then the other, making him less of a turtle and more of a cat sizing up a cornered mouse. "Randolph, take your light platoon and bring them in. I'm sorry I can't give you more time, Valentine, but other matters demand my attention. We'll talk again tomorrow. You know what to do, Captain Randolph?"

"Yes, sir," Randolph said, saluting and executing a neat about-face.

Faced with a direct order, Valentine could do little but obey. He saluted and left with Randolph. They descended the steps and joined Finner. "I feel like I've just been shanghaied," Valentine said.

Finner grinned, with the schadenfreude of a fox who has lost his tail seeing another fox lose his. "No, you've just been incorporated into the Bitter Enders. What's left they want to make sure stays till the bitter end. They've been shooting deserters."

"In other words, if the enemy doesn't kill you, we will," Randolph added. "Hate that it's come to that, but there you are. Six-bullet sentencing."

"How does that look stitched on a brigade flag?" Valentine asked.

Randolph let out a harrumphing noise that was half squawk and half bark. "Don't question us unless you've lived what we've been through. Valentine, the more I see of you the less I like you as an officer."

* * * *

Randolph's light platoon was light on experience. Valentine doubted any of the soldiers were much over eighteen; beneath the dirt the majority looked like they should still be in school. They moved over the hills with youthful energy, however, and came upon Post's camp before noon the next day. Finner rejoined his Wolves, who appeared and disappeared in wary silence. Hank spotted the approaching column first, and when he saw Valentine he took off his straw hat and waved it.

"We've been ordered to rejoin Southern Command," Valentine said to Post as the two groups eyed each other. "These kids are here to make sure we do it." Ahn-Kha rose from a squat behind a wagon and some of the light platoon grabbed at their rifles.

"What are you doing with Grogs?" Randolph asked, hand on the butt of his pistol.

"As I explained to General Martinez, they're on our side and they're trained. They helped us in the KZ, and I expect them to be treated with the respect due any other soldier in Southern Command," Valentine said.

"And we speak," Ahn-Kha added. "Have those children take more care with their rifles."

"Seems suspicious, you coming out of the Zone with Grogs."

M'Daw rose from the campfire. "Mister-"

"Quiet, M'Daw," Valentine said. Then, to Randolph: "He escaped the ambush in his underwear, Captain, and the only clothes we could find that would fit him were Quisling. We don't have any dye, so I'd appreciate some, or a change in uniform for him. I don't want him shot by accident on standing orders."

M'Daw sat back down and huddled under a blanket in such a way that his stitched-on name didn't show.

"Let's load up, Post," Valentine said. "Ditch the lumber; we won't need to build shelters after all, and there's no point hauling it up that hill. Let's make Mrs. Smalls' journey as comfortable as possible."

"Yes, sir."

Valentine, Ahn-Kha, and the two Grogs unloaded the Quickwood while Post put the marines and the civilians in marching order. Valentine marked the spot, triangulating off of the peak of Magazine Mountain.

"Something wrong, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked as they threw another beam on the pile.

"I don't like the way this outfit we're joining is being run. I have no business challenging a lawful superior's methods, but... hell, I've seen groups of Chicago hookers that are better organized. I didn't come all this way to hand over the Quickwood to a bunch of outlaws."

"Do we have an option?"

"Southern Command is finished, if this is representative of what's left. I'm thinking we might be better off with your people in Omaha, or maybe mine in Minnesota. In six more months this crew is going to be robbing towns and trains to feed themselves, with the meanest knife fighter calling the shots. I want to see M'Daw and the Smalls safe, then we'll talk about taking off."

Ahn-Kha's ears sagged. "Better do it quickly. If they break the marines up into other units-"

"Randolph is coming," Valentine whispered. Ahn-Kha's ears pivoted to the sound of footsteps.

"Why's everyone got wooden spears along with their rifles?" Randolph asked.

Ahn-Kha growled an order, and led the Grogs back up to the wagon.

"For the feral pigs in these hills. Those are boar spears."

"One of your men said it was for killing Reapers. That black cripple said the same thing."

"Have to tell them something or they just run at the sight of one. They think it's got big medicine. But so far they've just been used on pigs."

"Hope you boiled the meat good. I've seen men die eating wild pig. You might want to have your men check their shit. Our doc has a great remedy for worms. Just tell him you need to be sluiced out."

"Thanks for the tip. Is there contact with any other pockets of resistance?"

"General Martinez gets his orders through special channels. When it's time to move we'll hear it from him. There's talk of a counteroffensive next fall, when the Kurians think the Ozarks are pacified."

"Seems to me they're pacified already. How many do you lose each week?"

"You won't get far questioning the General, Valentine. The men love him. He's daddy and Santa Claus and Moses all in one. Have patience, the Promised Land is there."

"The Promised Land is occupied. We don't have forty years. We shouldn't be acting like we have forty days. Inertia and illness are going to kill your General's army; the Quislings and the Kurians are just going to be buzzards feeding off the corpse."

"Look, Valentine, I'm liking you less and less by the minute. You ever talk to me like that again and I'll deck you. You weren't here when it was raining Reapers, or when we got blown out of Fort Scott by so many guns you'd think

they had enough to land a shell every six feet. Martinez took five thousand beat-up men who were ready to surrender and pulled us back together. Southern Command put him in charge of the central Ouachitas after that. He's keeping us fed and armed without any help from a rear that plain vanished on us. Quit questioning him, or I'll turn you in as a traitor."

"In the Free Territory that trained me two officers speaking in private could criticize anyone without the word treason being thrown around. You swing on me anytime you like, as long as the men aren't watching. If you do it where they can see I'll have you up on charges for striking a fellow officer, Captain. Write up a report if you want. I'll be happy to repeat everything I've said word for word to the General."

They returned to the wagon, both simmering. Post had Narcisse and Mrs. Smalls in the wagon and everyone else lined up behind it. Randolph's platoon had been dispersed to form a screen. When all was ready, they hitched the team to the wagon and set off. Valentine elected to walk beside Ahn-Kha and the Grogs, picking the way southeast and ready to chop a path through the growth blocking the hill road if necessary. They forded a river and rested the team after the crossing.

"Why did you leave the Quickwood, Daveed?" Narcisse asked as they rested. Valentine was inspecting a wobbling wheel on the wagon, wondering if it would make it the rest of the trip.

Valentine glanced around, and found himself gritting his teeth at the gesture. He was used to looking over his shoulder in the Kurian Zone, but here, in the middle of titular comrades, the precaution grated.

"The boys we're joining up with, they're one rung on the ladder over the bandits on the borders between the Kurian Zones and the Freeholds. For all I know this General is getting set to go Quisling. He's keeping a lot of men who might be useful elsewhere liquored up and lazy. Their camp's in a state any junior lieutenant in a militia company wouldn't allow, but that doesn't stop them all from talking like they're the last hope of the Ozarks."

Mrs. Smalls rubbed her lumbar while her husband went to get her a drink from the river. "Some sergeant tried to disarm your funny-talkin' island men while you were with the Grogs. Mr. Post put a stop to it."

"I'm liking this Captain Randoph less and less," Valentine said.

* * * *

"Whoo-hoo boys, horsemeat coming in!" a voice called from beside the road.

Valentine saw machine-gun nests set to cover the bend in the road running up against the taller hill of the camp. They'd been set up while there were still leaves on the trees and now looked naked against the hillside.

"We're here," Randolph said from the saddle of what had been Valentine's horse. The column had made good time; it was barely afternoon of the second day since setting out from the shadow of Magazine Mountain.

"This isn't much of a road, but it's obliging of the others not to patrol it," Post said.

Randolph's platoon led them up the hill, the Grogs and marines sweating to help the wagon up the incline.

"Damn, they got them ape-men with 'em," one of the idlers said, pointing with the stained stem of a pipe.

"Prisoners? I thought we were getting a new company," the other said. "It's not even a sergeant's platoon. Thunderbolt Ad Hoc Rifles-bah."

Word spread through camp and men gathered, hoping to see familiar faces. The Jamaicans, in their strange blue uniforms, excited some comment among the men with dashed hopes.

"Can I speak to a supply officer?" Valentine asked. "I have to feed and billet my men."

Valentine heard a buzz at the back of the assembled men. General Martinez strode through. There was something of Moses in him after all; the men parted like the Red Sea at his presence. Some removed their hats or wiped their eyeglasses clean as he passed, gorgeous in his braided uniform coat, Van Dyke aligned like a plumb line.

"Welcome back to the Free Territory, Captain Valentine," Martinez said. "Those rifles your men have; Dallas Armory, aren't they?"

"Yes, sir, we took them off the post at Bern Woods. Those were the ones who ambushed us coming back across the Red."

"Every man counts here. Every man is important," the General said, loudly enough for all to hear. "The Grogs are another story. They'll run back to their buddies as soon as they see 'em. Sergeant Rivers, shoot the Grogs."

A man with stripes sloppily inked on the arm of a long trenchcoat pulled up a shotgun.

"Sir, no!" Valentine said. "They're my men. Let me-"

"Shoot, Sergeant," Martinez ordered. The gun went off. A Grog fell backward, his chest planted with red buckshot holes, his legs kicking in the air.

Ahn-Kha ran from the back of the column, knocking aside Valentine's old marines as he burst through them.

"David!" Ahn-Kha shouted.

"DrukV the other Grog said, looking from the kicking corpse to the sergeant with the shotgun. Its confused eyes turned to Valentine as the gun fired again.

Everything slowed down. The Grog wavered like a redwood with its trunk severed, then crashed to the ground. Valentine heard his own heart, louder in his ears than the gunshots, beating in time to Ahn-Kha's footfalls as the Golden One ran to his Grogs with arms outstretched. The smoking shotgun muzzle swiveled to Ahn-Kha as the red shell casing spun through the air. Valentine's hand went to his belt.

Valentine moved. Faster than he had in his encounter with the corporal the other night.

"Rivers," Valentine said, stepping behind the General with his .45 pressed to the back of Martinez's ear, "you shoot again and I'll kill him, then you."

"Valentine, have you gone-awwwk," Martinez started to say as Valentine grabbed a handful of goldenrod shoulder braid in his left hand and whipped it around the General's neck.

"Everyone calm down," Valentine said. "I don't want any more shooting. Post, don't draw that."

"Valentine!" Randolph shouted, pointing his pistol at Valentine's head in turn. "Let him go, right now."

"Men!" Valentine roared at the assembly. "General Martinez is under arrest for ordering the murder of soldiers of Southern Command. Randolph, you heard me tell him that the Grogs were part of Southern Command, under my authority. Twice. Uniform Code says no soldier of Southern Command can be executed without trial and unanimous verdict of three officers." Valentine decided not to add that the penalty for summary execution was a bullet in the back of the head.

"Southern Command is gone," General Martinez gasped. "There's no Uniform Code anymore."

"Then it's law of the jungle, Martinez. You're not a general, you're just some bastard who killed two of my friends. Last words?" Valentine thumbed back the hammer on the automatic.

"Shoot these bastards! Every one of them!" Martinez yelled.

"Guns down! Guns down! Keep order, there," a female voice shouted from the crowd.

Valentine looked across the heads of the crowd and saw men being pushed aside, before returning his eyes to the men around him. A stocky woman elbowed her way to the front. No, not stocky; short and powerful. She wore the cleanest uniform Valentine had seen yet in Martinez's camp, her muscular shoulders filling the Southern Command jacket in a way that would do credit to a Labor Regiment veteran fresh from six months of earth moving. Near white-blond hair disappeared up into a fatigue hat. The captain's bars on her collar were joined by an angled crossbar, forming a shortened Z.

The crossbar meant she was in the Hunters. Perhaps staff, but part of the organization that encompassed the Wolves, Cats, and Bears.

"You two," she called to Valentine's marines, "open the bolts on those rifles. Sergeant Rivers, lay down the shotgun." The men, even those who had never seen her before, obeyed. She looked over the situation, smelled the cordite in the air, and shook her head at the dead Grogs Ahn-Kha knelt beside. She turned to Valentine.

"Captain, you can put up the gun. I saw what happened from up the hill. General Martinez, it's my duty to place you under arrest for murder."

"I bet you're just loving this, aren't you, Styachowski," Martinez said. "I wouldn't fall asleep for the next week or so, if I were you. These men know their duty."

Styachowski's pallid features showed no sign of even hearing the threat, though her face had gone so white that Valentine wondered if she was about to faint at the sight of the bodies. Valentine released Martinez, carefully brought down the gun's hammer, and offered the pistol to Styachowski.

"Keep it, Captain Valentine. You're not under arrest. Neither are you, Rivers," she called over her shoulder. "But don't count on keeping those stripes, or the shotgun. You'll do your fighting for the next year with a shovel."

"Men!" Martinez roared. "Handcuff and gag this little bitch. Two-step promotion to any man-"

"The General's no longer in a position to give orders; he's relieved of command pending trial," Styachowski countershouted. Valentine couldn't help but be impressed by the volume she put into her roar. She coughed as she got her wind back. Perhaps she was ill; that might account for her pallor. "Corporal Juarez, I need you and your men to escort General Martinez to his quarters. Sergeant Calloway, have Private Rivers grab a shovel and start digging graves for the Grogs."

"But Grog bodies go-"

"Soldiers' bodies get buried on Watch Hill. That's where they'll go, right with our men."

Martinez glared at them from between two nervous soldiers. "Good luck finding three officers to convict, Styachowski. You and this other mutineer here both arrested me. You can't serve as judge and accusing officer. After I'm acquitted I'll try and hang you both for mutiny."

"Captain Randolph, find a place for Captain Valentine's people, please," Styachowski said. She nodded at Valentine, men turned and followed the corporal's guard up the hill.

"Post, have the men make litters for the Grogs. I'm sorry, Ahn-Kha," Valentine said.

Ahn-Kha looked up. Golden Ones cried; in that they were like humans. He held one of each of his Grog's hands in his own. "Nothing seems to change, my David. Always expendable."

"Ahn-Kha, I'll try and prove you wrong someday. First I want to see some justice done for the Lucky Pair."

The irony of the nickname tasted bitter, like hemlock in his mouth.

* * * *

Valentine's only look at the trial came when he gave evidence, and he didn't like what he saw. The crisis in command required prompt action. The trial was held, without a preliminary inquiry, the next day in the old brick ranch-style home that served as a guardhouse. Perhaps it had once been a vacation home, or a quiet retirement spot at the end of a winding, mountainside road. The owner liked his architecture low and spacious: wide porches, wide doors, wide windows. Inside, a great brick wall bisected the house into a huge living area and smaller bedrooms, which now served as cells, thanks to the limestone blocks of the walls.

Tables and chairs were arranged, nearly filling the big living room, with the three judges pressed up against the longest wall and facing the prosecution, the defense and a witness chair between the two. The temporary commander of the camp, Colonel Abraham, had excused himself from the trial, as traditionally no officer who stood to replace an accused superior could serve as a judge. The next senior officer in the shattered chain of command was a colonel named Meadows, who presided over the trial. At other times he might have been a good officer, but all Valentine saw was a nervous man seated between Randolph and a lieutenant colonel who smelled, to Valentine's sensitive nose, of marijuana.

Meadows had only one finger to accompany the thumb on his right hand, which clutched a handkerchief used every fifteen seconds on his sweating brow. A throng of men outside, given no duties by officers sympathetic to Martinez, listened through open windows as best they could and added boos and cheers accordingly. Captain Moira Styachowski- Valentine learned her first name when she took his statement-acted as prosecuting officer. She performed admirably under the circumstances, which at one point included a rifle bullet coming through a window and whizzing past her ear. Court adjourned to the floor.

The rifle was eventually found, dropped in a stand of bramble, but not the shooter.

After the missed shot Valentine swore to himself that he'd get his charges out of the camp. This bit of Southern Command was turning into a madhouse of angry, well-armed drunkards. But how far could they get on foot with a pregnant woman, old M'Daw and a boy, with a grudge-holding General following?

Valentine told his story, and answered five questions from Styachowski, stressing that he had told General Martinez at the evening meeting the nature of his command and his use of the Grogs. He tried to keep his voice even as he told of the summary execution of the Grogs, simple but skilled creatures with whom he'd served for a year.

"Did it occur to you, Captain, that General Martinez and his men had been fighting those very creatures for years?" the officer acting as defense counsel asked, leaning down to put his face close to Valentine's, probably in an effort to intimidate. Both the defense counsel and the General had been drinking during the previous night as they talked over the coming trial, according to Styachowski, and his breath made Valentine turn his face toward the triumvirate of judges to avoid the fumes.

"He's been fighting Quislings, too. Does that mean he kills every man who comes into the camp?"

"Answer the question, Valentine," Randolph said.

"I've fought Grogs myself."

"That's still not an answer," Randolph said.

"I took it for granted that he's fought them."

The defense counsel nodded to Randolph. "Then why didn't you make it clear that they were Southern Command soldiers and not prisoners? Why didn't you give them uniforms?"

"I identified them repeatedly. I didn't have any uniforms to issue, and even if I had, they served as scouts in the Kurian Zone much of the time. That's what made them so useful. Putting them in our uniforms would have detracted from that. Even if they were naked, it shouldn't have made a difference because-"

Loud boos and catcalls came through the windows.

"You'll answer the questions asked, Valentine," Randolph said. "No more. You run on again and I'll have you arrested for contempt."

The men outside cheered that.

"I'm giving evidence; I'm not an official of the court," Valentine said. "You don't have that power."

"Don't go tentpole-lawyering with me," Randolph said, "or as soon as you get off the stand you'll be brought to a cell." The men outside cheered him.

Styachowski stood up, her lower lip swollen from her biting it. "Sir, can we close those windows and shutters? The circus outside-"

"Is of your own making. The camp is in disarray. This isn't a Star Chamber. The men have a right to know what's going on."

Valentine looked at Martinez's face. The General ran his knuckles down each side of his beard. Triumph shone in his bloodshot eyes.

* * * *

So it was with trepidation that Valentine stepped away from the courtroom and went out onto the wide porch. An egg overshot his forehead and smacked the door's lintel, releasing a sulfurous reek.

"Next person throws anything deals with me," Nail said, stepping up and putting his thin frame in front of Valentine. The Bear was sunken-chested, but his tattooed arms were solid muscle and tendon. Perhaps it was just the aggressive stance, but his blond braides seemed to bristle. Men in Southern Command with regard for the integrity of their skeletal systems listened when a Bear made a threat; the catcalls quieted.

He escorted Valentine through the crowd using his elbows, an icebreaker smashing room for the larger ship behind. They made their way through the dirty camp. Nail found one of the squared-off green bottles, sniffed the mouthful that still remained inside and drained it.

"Goddamn that's vile, Captain." Nail sent the bottle spinning down the hillside, and after a faint, tinkling crash led Valentine uphill a short way on a trail. Valentine smelled more cannabis smoke from a cluster of men in a hollow.

"How long have you been in this zoo?"

"Long enough to know it's falling to pieces. If you ask me, a couple regiments of Quisling militia could sweep us off this hill. With slingshots."

"You can see it. Why can't the others?"

"The General got them out of a tight spot outside Fort Scott. These Guard brigades were the only ones to make it out of that pocket more or less intact, considering. Every time they thought they had us cornered, we got away. There's been some desertions, but no bad casualties since he took over. Food, light duties, wine, women and song. Everything a soldier could ask for, as long as they don't ask for a victory. Whatever else you want to say about the General, he knows how to slip out of a noose."

"I think he'll slip out of Styachowski's."

"You stepped into a private war, Valentine. Word around the campfire is Martinez tried to pull her pants off using his rank, if you follow." They crossed a narrow gully using a log bridge, with a rope strung as a handhold.

"When you say tried you mean-"

Nail winked. "Failed."

"He's been making her life hell ever since?"

"More like the other way around. She came out of Mountain Home GHQ, one of these invisible staff types that suddenly show up to fix screwups. Really sharp. Martinez made her his intelligence chief, but she quit. She landed in the quartermaster tents. If the men are well fed, I'd say it's because of her. The only ones to leave these hills are her scavenger patrols. Funny ideas, though."

"What do you mean?"

"She said she was a Bear."

Valentine raked his memory over. "I never met a woman Bear-but then I don't know many in your caste."

Finner shrugged. "No such thing. If she is one she's the only one I've ever met, too. I heard they tried it on a few women, but they died from whatever that goop is that the Lifeweavers pass out to the Bears at Invocation."

"We lost one when I became a Wolf."

"Yeah. Bears, too. But it's a hundred percent failure with women."

Valentine smelled a mass of humanity ahead, even upwind. "Now who are these?"

"You'll find out in about five seconds."

They passed down into a dimple in the hillside where Post had pitched their camp's tents. The tents were surrounded by a sea of uniforms. Guards, Bears, Wolves, even militia with inked insignia; all rose to their feet as Valentine and Nail crested the hill.

"It started at the Grog burial this morning," Post said, coming up to them. Ahn-Kha followed behind.

"I would have liked to have been there, but my testimony was required this morning," Valentine said.

"At first it was just the marines," Post said. "Then Finner and some Wolves came up, and others just kind of followed. Before the holes were finished it was in the hundreds. They had their guns; for a second it looked like a lynch mob. Then Ahn-Kha said something in his tongue-"

"The Third Lament, for the unjustly killed," Ahn-Kha added. "I practiced saying it so often in Omaha, I could recite it backward."

"When Ahn-Kha spoke everyone bowed their heads," Post continued. "When he finished, we all looked at each other. Like we'd all agreed."

"We're ready to come or go at your order, Captain," Nail said. "Every man here's had it with Martinez. We're ready" for a change."

Valentine looked at the expectant faces, from old friends like Jess Finnner to strangers and back again. His stomach went tight and sour. The death of the Grogs and his actions had polarized the camp; if he stayed there would be open feuding.

He'd had enough of the torn bodies of friends and followers. A weary part of him had decided to vanish with what was left of the Thunderbolt's complement. All he wanted to do was find a safe valley somewhere, then perhaps try for Denver in the summer. But he had to tell the gathering something.

"I'm glad you're here, all of you. I think ... I know what happened to Ahn-Kha's Grogs was wrong. Right now in that cabin they're deciding if there's going to be a change, but even if there is, General Martinez will just be replaced by his Colonel Abraham."

"He's worthless!" a woman's voice opined from the crowd.

"Look what he's letting go on outside the guardhouse," another called.

"Enough. He's your superior officer, and mine too, for that matter. If this camp divides, it'll be destroyed. If you're unhappy about something, you're free ... you're expected to bring it to the attention of your superior. I know you have the best intentions, but let's not give even the appearance of mutiny. The soldiery of Southern Command I see gathered here is better than that. The trial is being conducted according to the Uniform Code. Whatever happens is going to be legal, and it'll be our duty to accept the court's justice."

"They're breaking now," a boy called from the window, where he was listening to the voices in the guardhouse.

A restive mass of men, including Valentine, Ahn-Kha and those who had gathered at his camp, stood in the dark around the guardhouse, listening to the boy summarize the events inside. Colonel Abraham had placed a group of mounted soldiers around the court, putting them between the guardhouse and the men of any opinion. A massed fistfight had broken out when someone threw a rock at Ahn-Kha, and shouted, "You're next, stoop," but it ended when the horses waded into the fray.

Valentine waited, rolling and unrolling a piece of paper run off by the camp's primitive printing press. He had found it discarded in the camp.

SOLDIERS!

I write you from a cell, knowing the unjustness of the charges against me and sustained by your presence. I put my trust in the hands of God, for he is the final arbiter and whatever the outcome of my trial I can face him content that I have done right for you and for our Cause. I trust you to behave as the Loyal Hearts I know you are in this the darkest hour of our struggle. Carry yourselves as men of honor and obey until 1 am restored to command.

P. Martinez, General

Valentine reread the page-filling type. He admired the wording, equivocal enough to show Southern Command that he had asked the men of his command to keep order and obey those who had arrested and tried him, but he wondered if there wasn't an implicit threat in the final sentence. One interpretation of "Until I am restored to command" simply meant that he was confident of exoneration. A darker possibility could be that he was telling his loyalists that if he wasn't restored to command, he didn't expect them to obey those who had removed him.

Styachowski had been brilliant at the end, at least from what Valentine heard passed via the boy. The defense argued that it wasn't murder to shoot a Grog any more than it was to put down a mule, and that rules that protected a Southern Command soldier simply didn't apply to this case. After some back and forth the judges demanded that Styachowski give evidence that a Grog enjoyed the same rights as a Southern Command soldier.

After a pause-during which Nail predicted mat they were sunk-Styachowski began a recitation of the court-martial of a sergeant in charge of a Grog labor detail recruited from the ranks of prisoners. One of the Grogs hadn't moved quickly enough to suit the sergeant; he shot the laggard as an example to the others. The wounded Grog died, leading to the sergeant being brought up on charges of murder by the Grog's keeper, a Mississippian named Steiner. Steiner pushed the case through both military and civilian officials, and testimony provided by Grog experts from the Miskatonic affirmed that the Grogs reasoned, felt emotions, formed attachments, created art, created tools and the tools to make more tools; indeed everything humans did. Because of the landmark nature of the case the sergeant, though found guilty, had his sentence reduced: even when he shot the Grog he did so in the leg, trying to wound rather than kill. The case was affirmed a year later when a barroom brawl between a Grog janitor and a riverboatman resulted in the death of the Grog and manslaughter charges against the sailor, who ended up serving a long sentence.

Martinez's consul ended its defense with an argument that Grogs were often summarily executed when taken prisoner, and the General was simply following a standard practice.

The three judges, having no chambers to retire to, went out to the old garage of the guardhouse to discuss the verdict. They could just be seen in the gloom within through a single window in the back door. Valentine's ears picked up

Randolph's raised voice again and again. "Just Grogs... emergency ... situation requires ... indespensible."

Soldiers in the General's camp lit torches. The numbers had swelled in the darkness as others came off duty.

Finally, the front door opened.

The crowd quieted. Had Valentine been in a better mood, he would have smiled at the first display of discipline by the men since his arrival at the camp. He was finally able to hear voices from within the guardhouse, thanks to his Lifeweaver-sharpened ears.

"Bring him out of his cell," Meadows said. Valentine thought he heard Styachowski gasp, but he couldn't be sure.

There were footsteps, followed by the sound of chairs scraping.

"They're bringing him in!" the boy at the window shouted. The crowd froze; only the crackle of torches and the horses shifting weight from hoof to hoof came from the assembly.

"General Martinez," Meadows began, "this court recognizes your service to Southern Command. Every man here owes you a debt that cannot be repaid. However, the Uniform Code gives us little room for interpretation. As the code now stands, a guilty verdict in a willful murder case carries with it automatic penalties that cannot be suspended or commuted by this court in any way. Indeed, the only leeway given with a guilty verdict is life imprisonment instead of hanging, and as matters now stand there is no possibility of commutation from an executive authority since the governor cannot be reached.

"Though the charges are of willful murder, this court, in cooperation with the prosecution, has decided to find you guilty only of simple murder, which gives us the leeway to-"

"Guilty!" the boy shouted.

Martinez's supporters roared out in anger; Valentine heard no more. The mob threw two torches at the guardhouse. One sputtered out as it flew; the second landed on the timber roof, alight. Soldiers shot in the air, the muzzle flashes giving brief illumination to the mass of contorted, shouting faces. The most violent ran for the porch, gripping their guns like clubs to smash at the shutters and door. The guards ran inside, slamming the door behind them.

Nail barked an order and a triangle of men formed around Valentine, backs to him. They were Bears, big-shouldered giants who closed around him in a wall of muscle and attitude. Valentine, at six feet two inches, had to shift his head to see events around the guardhouse.

"Nail, can we get closer?" Valentine shouted.

"We can try."

"Ahn-Kha, let's get to the door," Valentine said.

Ahn-Kha's ears went back flat-the Golden One's equivalent of a man rolling up his sleeves-and he went down on all fours, using his two-ax-handle shoulders to clear a path like a bulldozer going through brush. The Bears followed, surrounding Valentine in a muscular cocoon. The horsemen were having no luck keeping the mob back; a few of the crowd had even been vaulted onto the roof. They extinguished the incipient fire, then continued stamping hard on the wooden eaves. Others kicked at the posts holding up the porch.

"They'll tear it down in a minute," Valentine said to Nail.

The door swung open. General Martinez appeared on the wide porch, holding his hands up for quiet. The men broke into cheers and whistles.

Martinez's small round eyes were sorrowful. He was sweating, even in the cool of the winter night. "Soldiers, soldiers! Quiet, men, quiet," he said, still moving his arms as if giving a benediction.

Even the men stomping on the roof stopped and waited for him to speak.

"I convinced them to let me speak to you. This madness has to stop. The camp is tearing itself apart because of these charges and this trial. As you have heard, the court-martial has found me guilty-"

Boos drowned him out until he held up his hands again. Valentine saw a self-indulgent smile cross his face, as if he found the whole proceedings to be a poorly executed practical joke.

"Yes, guilty, for doing my duty to the best of my ability. They are trying to destroy our army, the last, best hope for freedom for this land. Therefore I declare my emergency powers to be in effect, and these proceedings voided. This camp is in a state of martial law; the judges, Captain Styachowski, Captain Valentine, and any who helped them are under arrest for treason."

Valentine and Nail exchanged incredulous looks. The legalistic gibberish made no sense to them, as technically the soldiery of Southern Command had always been under martial law, from the moment they raised their right hands to be sworn in. A general in Southern Command had no emergency powers over his troops to invoke, any more than he had wings to fly. But the words sounded fine to the men, at least to the more stirred-up among them. Martinez stood aside while a dirty flood of them poured into the guardhouse. Valentine heard fighting, a pained cry. A man flew backward out of the front window and lay on the porch, folded like a clasp knife, cradling his solar plexus and gasping for air. In a few seconds Styachowski was dragged out, held aloft by the mob with a soldier at each limb, followed by the judges, guns to their backs.

"General, sir, I've been on your side the whole trial," Randolph said, his mustache black against his fear-paled face.

"I'll make my mind up about you later, Randolph."

"None of the General's orders are legal," Styachowski shouted, held aloft by the mob. Blood ran from her nose as she turned to bite at a hand pulling her hair. "He's no longer in command. He can't-"

"Take her shirt off," someone shouted. Others cheered and whistled. Valentine heard cloth tearing.

"General Martinez," Valentine boomed, stepping up beside Ahn-Kha. "I started this. I arrested you. I held a gun to your head."

The mob quieted at this; the men wanted to hear the exchange between their idol and his usurper.

Valentine felt a hard hand on his shoulder. "What the hell are you-" Nail began.

"I'm the one responsible," Valentine continued, shrugging off the Bear. "Nobody had a choice once I arrested you; there had to be proceedings from that point on. This is still Southern Command. I'm the only one you should charge with treason."

"Randolph, here's a chance to redeem yourself," Martinez said. "Shoot that mutinous bastard right now. Here, in front of his pet Grog."

"Auuugh!" Styachowski shouted, still writhing atop her holders. "This is insane! Don't be an idiot, Randolph. Put me down, now!"

Valentine saw the desperation in her upside-down eyes.

"You'll be on the ground, all right," Martinez said.

Valentine stepped forward. "What's the matter, Martinez? Afraid to do a summary execution yourself? How come somebody else has to pull the trigger for you? You never been blooded?"

"Somebody shoot-" Martinez began. Randolph reached for his holster.

Ahn-Kha chambered a round in his long Grog rifle, and Martinez looked down the barrel of .50 caliber of death sighted on his chest.

Nail and his Bears came forward, again surrounding Valentine. "No," Nail said, slowly and clearly. A short submachine gun appeared like magic in his hands. "Anyone shoots, Martinez, and my team comes up on that porch. After you. We won't leave enough of you to fill a shoebox. Then we start killing everyone with a hand on Styachowski. Then everyone who tried to interfere with either of those jobs. How many of y'all do you think we'll get before we go down. Twenty? Forty?"

"Whose side are you on, Lieutenant?" Martinez said, making the rank sound like an epitheth. "Sounds like you boys are getting set to do the Kurians' work for them."

"That's so, General," the largest of the Bears said. He had the smooth, rounded accent of the rolling Kentucky hills, rather man the trans-Mississippi twang of Nail. He pulled a knife from his belt, tossed it in the air and in the second before he caught it again drew a tomahawk with his left hand. "But only if you start it. My finishers are out. Any blood spills, mey won't go back in again without your guts strung on 'em."

"He's not a general, Rain," another Bear said. "Not anymore."

"Martinez is right," Valentine said. "Let's not do the Kurians' work for them. What'll it be, Martinez? A bloodbath?"

The Bears and Ahn-Kha must have made an impression. The crowd shrank away, perhaps not wanting to be the first to be tomahawked on Rain's way to the General.

"Name your terms, Valentine," Martinez said.

"First, nobody gets arrested for treason. Second, Styachowski and the judges walk out of camp with us. Somehow I think there'd be reprisals if any of us stayed. Third, you let anyone who wants to go with us leave. Peaceably."

"This is mutiny, Valentine."

"You have to have military organization to mutiny against. Your command is that of a warlord, maybe, but not armed service as Southern Command defines it."

"Then it's to the warlord to give his terms to those he's defeated. You and your men can leave. You may take personal possessions only. No Southern Command weapons, food, or equipment. You walk out of here as civilians, and I'll be sure to let my superiors know why that's the case. We won't be sorry to see you go; my men don't want to breathe the same air as traitors."

"He's awful free with that word," the Bear called Rain muttered.

"Try to get our guns. We'll walk out over-" Nail began.

"Wait, Lieutenant," Valentine said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Nobody gets killed, that's good enough."

"Is this a surrender, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked in his ear.

"A tactical retreat, old horse," he said. Then louder: "You have it, Martinez. We walk out with just our possessions. Now let Captain Styachowski go. We'll be gone in twenty-four hours."

* * * *

"This looks like a conference of war," Finner said the next day, as Ahn-Kha opened the tent flap. Styachowski, Post, Nail and, strangely enough, Colonel Meadows all sat around a folding camp table spread with maps.

"An informal one. Jess, they tell me you know the mountains east of here better than anyone. What are our chances of getting seven hundred people to the Arkansas River without using any Kurian-patrolled roads?"

"I don't see anyone smiling, so I guess this isn't a practical joke. Seven hundred?"

"That's what the numbers packing up look like," Colonel Meadows said. "Some are good soldiers, sick of hiding in the hills. Some are afraid that the General's gone loco." Meadows tapped his chest with the hand missing the fingers for emphasis.

"Styachowski says the hills are our only hope for moving that many without being noticed," Valentine added. "The Quislings stay out of the mountains because of those feral Reapers, except for big truck patrols. We'd hear those coming."

Finner looked at the maps. One, covered with a sheet of clear plastic, had a cryptic mark over where Valentine's refugees had been camping when the General added them to his command. "I was coming here to tell you that we've got two platoons of Wolves ready to go out with us. With them screening we might be able to do it. The lifesign will be horrendous. We'll draw trouble like a nightlight does bugs."

"And we'll be short, very short, on weapons," Post said. "It makes the route even more critical."

"How are you going to feed everyone, sir?" Finner asked.

"Working on it," Meadows said, with a glance at Styachowski. She looked tired.

"That's been most of the conversation. We'll take livestock. Like the myriads out of Egypt, we'll go with our flocks," Valentine said.

"What happens at the Arkansas? The river's watched and patrolled. I'd have trouble getting across with a platoon."

"Just get us there, Lieutenant," Valentine said.

"Sergeant, sir."

"You're going to be in charge of two platoons of Wolves. That's a lieutenant's command," Meadows said.

Firmer looked nonplussed. "Any chance of turning down this promotion?"

"We get back to Southern Command, and I'll fill out the rank reduction paperwork myself," Valentine promised. "Let's give Finner some time alone with the maps."

"Don't need 'em, sir," the new lieutenant said.

"You'll at least need to know where we're starting. First waypoint is the old campsite where we dumped that load of lumber."

* * * *

"Captain Styachowski, a word," Valentine said as they left the tent.

"Yes, Captain?"

"You still have friends on the old intelligence staff?"

"Staff? Friends? I had one nearsighted military analyst. She's coming with us; she doesn't like this moonshine brewery any more than I."

"I need everything you have on enemy organization on the Arkansas River."

"That's a lot of data. The river's their backbone running up the Ozarks."

"You've got to find us a way across."

"Short of stealing some flatboats or swimming the whole column, I don't see how we do it. Only bridges up are in Little Rock, and that's their new headquarters."

"Think about it for me."

Styachowski's eyes narrowed, but she spoke with a cheerful bounce to her voice. "I can't count on the waters parting, can I?"

"Sorry."

"Ah, well. When a Saint came marching into camp, I had hope-"

Valentine laughed. "What's the crossbar for?

"Hunter staff. I'm a Bear. Never made it on a combat team, though. Always some excuse."

"What did they invoke you for, then?"

"Didn't. I was sort of born into it. Only action I've seen was Hazlett, and that was in a mortar team."

"I was up that way. Didn't see the fighting, just the cleanup," Valentine said.

"Lucky. But it was a picnic compared to the last few months."

"One more thing. You had a rough time, at the trial and after. Are you okay?"

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You don't look well. Have you been sleeping enough?"

She ran her hand through her hair and rubbed the back of her neck at the end of the gesture. "I always look like a slice of fresh death. Don't worry."

"I mean the fight at the trial. Hell of a thing to go through."

"I'm a bit numb still. I'm glad we have a lot to do ... I'll just work till I drop tonight. Be better tomorrow."

"Don't short yourself sleep. Just makes everything worse." Valentine spoke from experience. "Sometimes a drink helps."

"I've had three drinks my whole life, Captain. Two of them were last night, after all that. Didn't help. Thanks for hearing me out about the Bear stuff. Lieutenant Nail just laughed. Our good General said I had too good a brain for fighting, and too tight an ass for uniform pants. I hope you'll give me a chance to prove myself."

"You proved yourself when you stepping in at the Grog shooting."

"I should have taken action before then. Been watching and waiting too long, should have followed my gut a long time ago. When he started letting the gargoyles overfly us witfiout so much as a shot..."

She left the last to hang for a moment, and Valentine wondered at her absent stare into the distance. Then she swallowed and threw her muscular shoulders back. "Okay, time to round up some livestock and then sit down with a map. If you'll excuse me, I have a lot to do."

* * * *

Colonel Meadows put himself between Valentine and Martinez as the column made ready to leave.

"You've nothing to fear from me, Meadows," Martinez said. He glanced up to Randolph, perched on a rock above. Randolph had decided to stay, and sat atop the rock, rifle in his lap, looking out at the assembled "mutineers."

"That whole farce was my fault," Meadows said. "You should have been tried from your cell in the guardhouse. You're a disgrace, but I'm the bigger disgrace for letting it happen."

Valentine looked out on the road, filled with files of people in meir assortment of Southern Command uniforms, rain ponchos, coats and hats. Perhaps six hundred soldiers were interspersed with a handful of tagalong civilian specialists. Packhorses and mules, leashed pigs, chickens and geese in baskets, and a total of four wagons added to the noise and smell. Squads of Guard soldiers were relieving the men of Southern Command rifles, while others poked in the pack-horse loads. A cold wind coursed through the hollow.

"None of the animals have a Southern Command brand," Valentine said, continuing the argument Meadows had interrupted. Ahn-Kha wandered up the file, cradling his long Grog rifle.

Out of Martinez's hearing, Valentine heard Ahn-Kha make an aside to Post.

"How'd you get a captured gun?" Ahn-Kha asked, touching Post's holstered .45. It was a duplicate of Valentine's; Post had given him one while they served together on the Thunderbolt.

"It's not Southern Command issue."

"Letter of the law," Ahn-Kha said. "A few dozen guns between all of us."

"For a column a half mile long."

Valentine turned his attention back to Martinez, still arguing with Meadows. "You think you can move this many through the hills? You're throwing away the lives of everyone here. I'll offer an amnesty. We can bring the command back together."

Meadows unhooked his pistol belt and handed it over to Martinez. "That 9mm is Southern Command issue. Wouldn't want to set a bad example." He looked at the'men holding the horse teams. "Five minutes!" he shouted. "We get going in five minutes!"

"Don't be a fool, Colonel," Martinez said. "We need you. And these good men." His beady eyes glanced up and down the files of men. It seemed that those who still shaved and cleaned their uniforms were all lined up with Valentine.

"Martinez," Valentine said, "you don't have a command. You have a mob. They way things are going in this camp, you won't even have a mob much longer."

Martinez sneered. "Think so? I'll give you a prediction in return. We'll outlast you."