by E. E. Knight
"C'mon, Val," his friend said. "It's cooler than the jungle."
Valentine and Carrasca exchanged shrugs, and he stripped to applause from all. A few pointed at the white pock left by the old bullet wound on his leg.
Narcisse laid her hands on him, reciting something that sounded like mixed French and Latin. He lowered himself at her command to hoots of approval.
"I knew you had a strong ti-bon-ange, my boy. Ogun himself told me so just now," Narcisse affirmed. Valentine felt refreshed, if not strengthened or healed. He waded back to the shore. He reached for his clothes, but Carrasca snatched them up.
"I don't think you're through yet. Do you see anyone else getting dressed?"
There were more singsong chants, and the returning warriors lined up to walk naked back to the village. Valentine joined in the lines. The Grogs scrambled down from their rocky balconies to follow.
"How'd you get the leg wound?" Carrasca asked, falling into step next to him.
"Up in Nebraska. Acting like a damn fool."
"A damn fool who saved my people," Ahn-Kha added from behind.
"Your people saved themselves," Valentine demurred. "But it was years ago. I'll take sea duty any time. Fewer forty-mile days."
"You'd cover forty miles in a day? On horseback?" Carrasca asked.
"On foot. It was common in the Wolves. We weren't so special. Two hundred years ago, Zulu armies in Africa could run fifty in a day. And they weren't even trained by the Lifeweavers."
They came to the village near the spirit-spot, a trailside cluster of shacks painted and decorated in bright colors. Dancing red figures, green snakes, blue birds, and less recognizable patterns wound around doorframes, roofs and windows in the Haitian style. Tables and barrels heaped with food and drink stood in the doorways and alleys; musicians drummed a tattoo on hollow logs and ancient plastic pails, calling all together. The spectators ate and drank with enthusiasm. Handsome Haitian women poured rum and juice into wooden tumblers, which were emptied as quickly as they could be filled.
Just outside the village a rivulet emptied into a field of clay-colored mud. A shaman brought them to the edge of the water. He began to shout imprecations to Haiti's enemies. Valentine understood just enough to know he called on the warriors to be armed and shielded in new spirit. Monte-Cristi yelled a response and belly-flopped into the mud; he rolled around until he was well coated. His men followed, eager as overheated elephants to go into a cool wallow.
"Go on, boy," Narcisse said. "Take on Ogun's armor."
Valentine bit off a response about Ogun's armor not doing pigs a hell of a lot of good. He stuck a foot in the mud; it did feel cool and inviting between the toes.
Post gave him a shove. Valentine fell into Napoleon's fifth element facefirst, rolled over, and let out a whoop.
"Thunderbolt!." he called.
The men shouted the name of their ship and dived in with the Haitians. Soon it was almost impossible to tell black skin from white-or Grog skin, for that matter, as all were covered in the grayish plaster.
Valentine, grinning behind a mask of mud, rose and advanced on Carrasca in a threatening crouch.
"Oh, no!" she said, backing away. "I'll never get it out of my-"
He vaulted out of the mud, landing beside her before she had time to turn. He clasped her around the chest and dragged her, shrieking and kicking, into the mud. He flopped into the morass, and she landed astride him.
"Bastard!" she laughed, flinging a wet handful of soil down at him. "At least you were undressed."
"I'll wash them myself."
Valentine watched her bind her partially despoiled hair up in a bandanna, and pull off her shirt with muddy fingers. Her shorts followed. She pinned him into the wallow with a knee, her eyes wide and hot. He felt her take his head in her hands and she kissed him, pressing against his body tightly enough to squeeze mud out from the join where their bodies met. When she came up for air, he saw her nipples hard beneath their gray coating.
Sailors, marines, and Haitians followed his example, grabbing women out of the hooting crowd and pulling them into the mud. A few ran or struggled, laughing all the time, but the only screams were ones of delight as the men planted muddy kisses on flushed cheeks, necks, and breasts.
Valentine rolled Carrasca over and kissed her, and then she returned the move. When their lips finally parted, she was on top again. She looked around at the muddy figures, dancing, playing, and making love.
"You've started an orgy, Captain," she said. "I don't know what I think about an officer that lets his men get out of hand like this."
Valentine cupped her buttocks. "I'll let them be, my hands are rather full of something else at the moment."
"Is that some kind of crack?"
He explored further with his fingers. "No, but this is."
She giggled an un-captainish giggle. "Another bad joke like that and a certain marine of my acquaintance won't get his brains fucked out momentarily."
"We'll talk some more in the bushes." Valentine picked himself up and offered a hand.
"Your tongue's going to be busy elsewhere."
He slapped her mud-covered buttock and followed her into the forest, first running and then walking, until they splashed across the stream and found a clearing, a field next to an abandoned hut, perhaps a former garden. Long grasses and palmettos had supplanted the rich soil's food crops. Valentine was in no mood to search for the perfect glade, especially with Carrasca exploring his hardness from behind, using it like a divining rod to find a spot to make love.
They sank to their knees, tongues exploring one another's mouths.
He found mudless patches of her body to kiss, and explored the rest of her coated skin with his hands. "Val...," she began, and then trailed off into a Spanish-English murmur that grew more and more feral as he pressed her into his arms. She sank limp to the ground. He lay next to her, cradling her and running his hands up and down her body, lingering at her inner thighs. His mouth explored where his fingers left off, and she again took his head in her hands; she pressed her mons up to his mouth. The salty-sweet feminine musk hardened him beyond self-control, and he rose up from her sex and positioned himself between her legs.
He felt her open for him and he moved inside her, everything inside her warm and wet and magic. Her face grew contorted as he moved in her, ever deeper and faster as their passion waxed. She raked at his back with her nails, sending chips of dried mud flying like a sculptor working with ten tiny chisels. He shut his eyes, lost in his own sensations yet still aware of her. He felt an irresistible, toboggan-ride rush of pleasure, and the draining spasms came.
They drowsed away a few moments in each other's arms, tingling as if joined by a low voltage circuit.
"Another kick in the teeth," he mused, feeling the matted-down grass beneath his back.
"Huh?"
"For Death. There's more than one way to strike a blow for life."
She furrowed her brows, and then evidently gave up trying to figure out what he was talking about. Her hand explored him.
"Blow for life ... and they say men don't come with instructions."
She moved downward, and took his limp penis in her mouth. Tongue and mouth, passionately applied, worked a resurrection.
"That's the spirit," she said, straddling him, coming up for more than air.
The Haitians showed their gratitude when it came time to fill the Thunderbolt with quickwood and provisions. Ahn-Kha and his Grogs supervised the cutting and milling of some of the trees into usable lengths. Smaller saplings were gently extracted by shovel, placed in clay cauldrons or wrapped in layers of dirt and burlap, and ported down to the beach one at a time. As a final gift during a visit to the beach, Papa Legba gave the entire ship's crew each a leather tobacco pouch with a handful of seeds for new quickwood trees.
"Kur is a dry place," the renegade said when Valentine asked about the seeds. "These will remain dormant for years if kept out of your sun, until placed in moist soil
. They grow slowly, so have patience. Let the wood mature, and take only branches if you must."
"We'll see that they end up in the right hands," Valentine promised. "Perhaps someday you'll come north and see the groves yourself."
"No, I'll stay in the warmth and the growing gardens. In a cold climate, I doubt I could survive a winter without... a different means of support."
"Maybe cows would do, or pigs."
"You still do not understand, do you, Valentine? It is the sapient mind that gives us the kind of vital aura infusion that truly satisfies. Each aura has a different flavor: a man enduring hideous tortures, a woman desperate to save her offspring, a terrified child taken in the night all have a distinct feel when absorbed. The 'rush' as you might call it varies- an aura can be consumed in the time it takes to scream, or over the course of many painful hours. There were times when my-"
"Point taken," Valentine said, instinctively balling his fists.
"I forget my manners. Would one discuss cuts of meat or beef stew recipes with a group of cattle? Forgive me, son of mine enemy."
Valentine relaxed, but wanted to end the interview. "Perhaps when I'm old and the winters feel too long, I'll come back to the islands." He met Carrasca's eyes across the glare of the sand, and she cupped the leather pouch suggestively. "I'd like to hear more about Kur, and the other planets in the Interworld Tree."
"A strong mind is a blessing when the body grows frail," the Once-ler of many names agreed. "May fortune walk with you, for you'll walk into many lands bereft of it." He waved in his weary fashion and let his bearers carry him off. 'The debt is paid," Valentine heard him say.
At the time the phrase was just one more curiosity from the enigmatic Kurian. It would be years before Valentine learned its significance.
He took his leave of Monte-Cristi, sitting at the edge of the beach in a hammock chair fanning himself.
"Did the river and mud cure take, Jacques?"
"Not as much as Narcisse's cooking. She's a gifted woman, something for the body, something for the ange. You were wise to offer her a trip north, it is something she has long dreamed of. I also have a message from our friend with the dogs at the Cape. They've fixed the holes in that old submarine. I wouldn't be surprised if your enemy comes looking for you. Though Boul is chafing, he may throw in with us in the end. The Santo Domingans have trouble keeping the last road along the north coast open, with these new guns the Roots have been shooting up their convoys. He senses a change in the wind."
"Then I won't worry about Haiti any more, Jacques. If my old friend Boul is thinking of throwing in with you, you must be sure to win."
"Some of our mechanics are making crossbows like those your ape-men use-but smaller. Better against the Whisperers than spears." Valentine walked among Monte-Cristi's chieftans and soldiers, thanking them as best he could in Haitian Creole, before returning to Jacques. Their conversation moved on to military technicalities, smothering the good-bye in trivia.
Narcisse arrived with an assortment of potted dishes for the officer's mess, bags of provisions, and a chest full of Haitian spices. "Fried plaintains, fried pork, a bag of mushrooms-they're good on everything," she said, lifting lids and pointing with her mutilated arm. "Enough fruit to last a long while, fresh and dried. Now the spices-" She continued checking over the contents of her baggage like a marine preparing for a landing on a hostile shore.
"I'd have never left that cell if it weren't for you, Nar-cisse."
"And I'd still be getting stains out of Boul's underwear. We help each other, blanc."
He stepped on to one of the Thunderbolt's launches, Nar-cisse once again riding in her place on his back, and as it left the beach Valentine felt sadness, and some relief. Relief at the fact that he found on Haiti what he spent over a year getting to, and sadness in saying good-bye to so many of those who risked everything to help him. He turned his body toward the ship, its outline changed by the potted trees lashed everywhere on the decks. The old Thunderbolt looked like a floating forest.
The launch hove alongside, and Valentine climbed aboard and reported himself present to the mate on watch. He and some sailors helped Narcisse to the galley, where she sniffed suspiciously at the Jamaican pepperpot the cook's mate was creating in celebration of leaving Hispaniola.
Valentine went up on deck and watched the preparations for departure. The motor launch was swung up, and a last few sailors and marines came out to the ship with the Haitians. There were friendly exchanges of cotton ducks for pigskin utility vests, earrings for copper bracelets, and so on over the side of the ship. There would have to be a strict search for smuggled alcohol, and the wearisome task of getting rid of lice and bedbugs which undoubtedly hitched a ride from the shore. But Valentine could leave those details to Carrasca and her mates. He and Post had to make sure the marines and Grogs were ready to fight if necessary.
The last lap. He needed to get the ship to the Texican coast. His superiors would handle the rest; he would be back to being a cog in a larger machine, rather than the axis driving the various cogs. Would he miss the taste of independent command he had been given? Being on his own was a banquet of endless servings of stress and headaches, but the freedom added spice to the dishes.
Thankfully, for this last voyage he would not have to turn into Captain Bligh on the Bounty and ask his crew to sacrifice for the cargo. The saplings were hardy enough to survive the short trip across the Caribbean, assuming the Thunderbolt's aged diesels held out, without taxing the ship's freshwater resources. After the challenges of the late months, Valentine was ready to spend a week supervising potted saplings.
Ahn-Kha again quartered his Grogs in the forward well deck, their old tentage replaced by a grove of quickwood plants, their crossbows and pikes stored below, shotguns and rifles cleaned and put away in the arms lockers. He wandered among the bunks of the marines. His complement was already displaying souvenirs acquired on the island, hung upon bunk and locker. Hispaniolan voudou charms wrought from wood and bead swung with the ship's gentle motion.
He returned to the deck for a last look at Haiti. The mountains, so green that the color deserved a richer word to describe it, stood out against the azure blue of the sky and the argent blue of the Caribbean waters below. It was an island of extremes: beauty and hideousness, laughter and despair, freedom and slavery. But from this island that had known an almost endless series of sorrows for the past six hundred years, a new world could spring.
Narcisse's dishes made a superb dinner, once the cook and his mate let her take over supervision of the meals. Valentine had the galley busy, and treated Post and the rest of the Thunderbolt's marines to a feast. Good food and plentiful tobacco-all as night fell after an easy day's duties- made the men lively.
"How's life in the Ozarks?" a stout corporal with a stand of red hair asked. "I've heard the winters pass hard."
"Irish, I know a lot of stories get passed around the Kurian Zone about that," Valentine said. "There's enough to eat. Sometimes it isn't what you'd like as a first choice, or even a second, but we don't starve. You'll find out there's a lot of ways to cook chickpeas, and you'll get sick of dried fruit, I can promise you that."
"Women?" Hurst called, and the men snickered.
"That's one thing we're not short of. Fact is, there's so many, you'll find a few in uniform. There are a lot of lonely widows, too, which makes a man think, but if any of you have a mind to be a second husband, you'll have your pick. We've got schools, roads, there's a gambling boat, showboats, and I'm even told of a floating whorehouse or two on the Lake of the Ozarks. Being an officer and a gentleman, I wouldn't know details, naturally."
The men snickered and passed around comments under their breath, like kids in school, and Valentine heard Car-rasca's name mentioned.
"Enough of that," Post growled.
A shout echoed from above. The collision Klaxon sounded. Something thumped against the ship's hull, a grinding jar that had everyone reaching for a table or a bunk brace t
o steady themselves.
"Vampir-," the squawk-box sounded, before falling silent. Valentine listened with hard ears, trying to shut out the bleating alarm, and heard the icy shrieks of Reapers.
"My God, they followed us!" Post said.
"Take arms, men-anything!" Valentine shouted. He didn't have so much as a knife on him.
"Quickwood, anyone have some?" Post asked.
The marines were already grabbing rifles and shotguns from the beckets in the wall of their quarters; a corporal coolly gave out bullets as the men took arms from the wall.
"Sir!" one marine shouted, running up to him with two of Post's screw-in pike-points. A scream, then a second, came from above-along with a smattering of gunfire.
"It'll have to do."
"Post, take Wilde and his team and get to the Oerlikon. Ignore anything else, I don't care if she's on fire, get that weapon manned. Irish, you and the rest of the men follow me! The forward stairs, we have to get to the bridge. Hand me that machete, Torres."
Post shoved a speedloader into a heavy .44 revolver with a trembling hand and gestured to his assigned men.
"Marines, you see a Reaper, shoot until it's down if you can. They'll have the advantage up close like this. Let me get in and get its head off, or stick it with the quickwood. If I catch it, get up to Post. Any more wood down here?"
"Here's a pike," another said.
"Take the tip off-it's too hard to use on the pole. Ignore any wounded, don't pay attention to anything, we go to the bridge. Now, with me!"
They moved at his order into the night's chaos. Valentine rushed out into the next compartment forward and gained the stairs leading up to the main deck. A marine caught his rifle going through the doorway and tripped, but the rest jumped over him and up the stairs in a steady stream.
