Choice of the Cat

by E. E. Knight

  Valentine padded up the creaking staircase in the faintly piggy-smelling house. A steaming bucket of water, soap, a basin, and a towel waited for him.

  "Whoever last used this had a lot more hair than me," Duvalier commented, looking at one of the long hairs caught in the brush she held. She had a towel on and was playing with the three-plated mirror in me small bedroom vanity.

  "He's a widower. He told me when we stacked wood. Her name was Ellen. They had two kids, Paul and Wynonna, and she died giving birth to Wynonna. The kids are both dead in the Cause's service."

  Duvalier set the extracted hair carefully on the marble tabletop.

  Valentine stepped into the old bathroom across the hall. The fixtures were operational, though they gave only cold water, and the electrical lighting in the house was a pleasant surprise. Sutton must be fairly well-to-do, or the area between Fayetteville and Beaver Dam better maintained than most parts of the Free Territory.

  He washed up with the pail of hot water and returned to the bedroom. "So you're 'the missus,' huh?"

  She peeped out at him from under a thick quilt. "My conversation with him wasn't quite as serious as yours. He assumed, and I didn't correct him. I'm not looking for sex, but you are a warm body. It's a cold night."

  "Your hot water bottle is turning in. Ready for light's out?"

  "Mmmmph," she agreed, turning facedown in a feather pillow.

  Her rich, female smell both lulled and excited him as he lifted the covers to climb into bed next to her. His nostrils explored her even if his hands remained tucked under his pillow. He toyed with the scents in the room, locating them with his eyes shut: the wet hair of the woman next to him, the out-of-mothballs sheets, the dusty quilt, the warm, soapy water remaining in the bucket and sink, wood smoke, and the faint, omnipresent smell of pigs. He counted scents like some people count sheep, and was asleep when his companion Cat pressed her back against his.

  The next morning, after sharing two steaming cups of coffee from Duvalier's shrinking supply of beans, they packed up again. Sutton drank the coffee with lip-smacking pleasure and presented them with a slab of cured bacon wrapped in brown paper.

  After exchanges of gratitude and good-byes, the pair turned east. The ground grew more rugged, and the roads began to break down into trails. Worn-down mountains loomed ahead. They walked in companionable silence, pausing at little streams for water and brief respites.

  "I've never been to this part of the Territory," Valentine said. "Where are we headed?"

  "Cobb Smithy. One of the best weapons men and all-around blacksmiths in the Free Territory."

  "I think I've heard of him. I recall some of Major Gowen's Bears talking about him."

  "Actually, it's a bunch of them. There's old Cobb, his son, his daughter, a couple of journeymen, and apprentices. It's quite an operation. They probably made that chopper of yours."

  "My parang? How can you tell?"

  "What, you never looked at the blade closely?"

  "To oil it, sharpen it... Wait, the CFS on the blade, in little letters right by the hilt?"

  "Cobb Family Smithy, Valentine."

  He drew his old, notched parang with its hardwood handle. He held the blade so the light fell on it, and looked again at the faint letters scrolled in tiny, precise calligraphy up against the hilt. "Funny, I never thought to ask what it meant."

  They reached the smithy and outbuildings early in the afternoon. Faint hammering sounds from two different workshops sounded in the little hummock of land between Arkansas ridges. A stream ran down from the high hills to a half-pond, half-swamp on the other side of the road.

  A pair of sizable but indefinable dogs trotted up to greet them, warily hopeful. Valentine took a step forward to greet the canines, and the pair began barking to raise the dead. A boy on the short side of ten ran down the drive to meet them.

  "Who are you, and what's your business?" he squeaked. Then to the dogs, with more authority, "Still, you two! We know company's come."

  "Smoke, Cat of Southern Command. Her Aspirant, Ghost. He needs a weapon or two."

  "You're welcome here, then," the boy said, swelling with self-importance. "Follow me."

  The house was a single-story conglomeration, a long rambling rancho growing like a rattlesnake's tail: an extra part every year. Whatever their skill at steelwork, the Cobb family knew little about architecture esthetics.

  A middle-aged woman came out onto the nearly endless porch and squinted down at the visitors. She broke into a grin and clapped floured hands together. "Why it's Smoke, our little Kansas State Flower. How's that straightsword working out for you?"

  "Needs a professional edge put back on. The hilt could use some rewrapping, too—the cording is a little frayed."

  Valentine looked at the Cat, puzzled. "Did you bring it? It must be awfully small."

  Duvalier exchanged glances with the woman and shrugged. "He's new, Bethany." She twisted her walking stick at the knob on the head and exposed a black handle. In a flash, she had the sword out from concealment within the stick. Valentine guessed the blade to be about twenty-two inches, single edged, with an angular point. The metal was dark, burnished so as not to reflect light.

  Bethany examined the hilt with an expert eye. "I'll get a man on this. Can't have our precious Smoke losing her grip in a fight. What does your Aspirant need?"

  "Apart from about two years' training in the next two months—which is my problem, not yours—he's going to need a set of claws. I'd like to see about getting him a decent blade, too. He's a Wolf, but by the look of it, he's been digging holes with that cotton chopper of his. He needs something to bite a Reaper."

  "You want the old man to work with him, or my brother?"

  "The Ghost here has had a hard enough week. Nathan will do."

  "I'll be happy to oblige," Bethany said, moving to the screen door and holding it open. "C'mon in, and I'll make some tea."

  "I've got better than that. Coffee," Duvalier said, handing over the rest of the bag.

  Bethany Cobb smelled the beans. "I declare! You are just too good, rosebud."

  They went into the kitchen, a vast cavern with two stoves and a large brick oven. After ringing a bell on the end of a carved wooden handle, Bethany reached high on a shelf for a coffeepot and grinder, and began to work on the beans while the water heated. "My brother will be with you shortly."

  Nathan Cobb was a lumbering man with bulging arms and a substantial potbelly. He clapped Duvalier on the back, a blow she absorbed with some grace, and came close to crushing Valentine's hand in a vigorous shake. "Always, always happy to see a new Cat out there. Raise some Hell for me, would you, ummm, Ghost?" he said before getting down to business.

  "I take it you need a set of claws?" he asked Duvalier.

  "Yes, please, and time is a little bit of an issue."

  "He seems to have average-size hands. You want talons like yours, or blades?"

  "Talons, and make the fingers stiff—concealment won't be an issue on this job. I want him to be able to climb with them as well as fight."

  "That'll save some time. Let's measure you up, son." Cobb extracted a stained tape measure from his work apron, and wrapped it around Valentine's palm. He then measured each finger from the little well in the center of his hand to its extremity, making notes in neat block numbers in a little pocket pad. "How about a weapon or two, Smoke? Are you going to train him?"

  "I'll have to."

  "Then you'll want a sword for him, I suppose. We may have something already made up."

  An old man appeared at the kitchen at a door from one of the adjoining rooms in the endless house. "Is that coffee I smell?"

  Bethany began pouring. "Sure is, Dad. We have visitors, and they brought it. Smoke Duvalier and her apprentice, Ghost."

  The elderly man paused in his appreciation of the Java. "Ghost? What's your real name, son? Don't worry, my memory's going so fast, I wouldn't be able to tell anyone if I wanted to."

  Valentine looked
at Duvalier.

  "He's named Valentine," she said.

  "Then your father was—"

  Valentine rose. "His name was Lee Valentine, Mr. Cobb."

  The senior Cobb's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You sure don't look like him, except a little round me eyes. You sure you're modier wasn't just making a brag?"

  Valentine ignored the insult. "My mother was Sioux, sir. North side of the Great Lakes."

  "You're a fair size, but not as tall as your father. Nat, he needs a weapon?"

  "Something for a Cat, not a Bear," the son answered.

  "C'mon, boy, follow me," he said, blowing on the scalding mug of coffee and shuffling off down the hall. He opened a door to a stairwell and slowly started down into the basement.

  Valentine looked around at the others, who simply smiled. He followed the senior Cobb.

  The basement had a collection of everything from swords to antique farm implements. Daggers hung next to sickles on one wall, and opposite, pitchforks shared a rack with long pikes. A cavalry saber occupied a place of honor over a fireplace. Valentine stepped up to it and looked at the rather ordinary hilt and scabbard.

  "That belonged to Nathan Bedford Forrest, son, but I don't expect you know who that is."

  "Confederate cavalry commander in the Civil War. He wasn't a West Pointer, but he sure outwitted a bunch of them."

  "Glad to be wrong once in a while. Bound to happen every year or two. See anything you like?"

  Valentine picked up a heavy blade with a basket hilt sharing a rack with a similarly sized claymore. He swung it experimentally.

  "Valentine, what are you thinking?" Duvalier chided him from the bottom stair. He hadn't heard her on the stairs. "You don't want to be lugging that halfway across the country. Mr. Cobb, let's look at something he can draw fast and swing quick."

  "Hummph," Cobb grunted, not exactly disagreeing, but not wanting look like he was taking her advice, either. "I have a beautiful blade and scabbard. Last carried by a Guard with a different taste in sword. They usually like sabers and epees. Let's see what you think of mis."

  He opened a footlocker and began sorting through long, slightly curved shapes wrapped in blankets and twine.

  "Which sumbitch is it? Here we go," he said, extracting a shape. He handed it to Valentine.

  Intrigued, the would-be Cat unwrapped it. As soon as he saw the hilt, he recognized it as a samurai sword of some kind. His brain searched for the term.

  "Called a katana, Valentine. That's a helluva piece of fighting steel. Looks old, but it's actually from this century. We'll have to fit you with a new hilt, but that won't take too long. Only twenty-four inches of blade."

  Valentine drew it experimentally. The blade carried a few cryptic ideograms etched in the metal.

  "Can you cap the scabbard like mine?" Duvalier asked.

  "Easy enough, missy. You should use it two-handed, boy, lets you put your whole back into it. But you can use it one-handed, from horseback, say, or if you want to parry with those damn fighting claws.

  "I like it," Valentine said. "What's the cost?" he asked, wondering where he would come up with the money.

  "That's Southern Command's problem, not yours, Valentine. You and little missy here will just have to sign a chit for what you take."

  Duvalier wrinkled her freckled nose. Valentine could tell that the missy was getting under her skin.

  The claws, he learned the next day, were a pair of metal hands held to his palms by thick leather straps. They arced out like a second skeletal system from there, ending in sharp talons that capped his fingers.

  "You can climb a tree with'em, and they do gruesome in a fight if you use'em right," Duvalier explained. She put on her slightly smaller pair and looked around for a tree. "It takes a little practice," she said, stepping to the bole of a mature oak. She jumped up the side of it, reaching around either side until her palms were opposite, and began climbing. She was among the branches in no time.

  Valentine imitated her and learned to his chagrin that if he failed to grip the trunk with his legs, a single set of the claws weren't enough to hold him up. He arrested the slide before falling off, then managed to hump his way up the trunk neither as quickly nor as gracefully as Duvalier. But he succeeded.

  He also learned about putting a new hilt on his sword. A craftsman named Eggert showed him how to encase the naked tang in a wooden handle shaped more or less to fit Valentine's hands. Then he wrapped it in wet pigskin, applying a series of small bumps to the blade side in fastening the leather. "They used to use skin from stingrays and sharks, but those aren't too common hereabouts," Eggert explained. Finally a fine cording was wound round and round the hilt. Duvalier insisted on tying the last knot herself.

  "For luck," she said, planting a tiny kiss on the newly reconstructed hilt. They worked on the scabbard together, fitting an old rifle sling to the mahogany wooden tube. Valentine decided he felt most comfortable carrying it over his shoulder.

  "We can add a spring to the bottom—it'll help you draw faster," she observed, after watching him pull the sword a few times.

  They moved on as soon as Valentine's sword was finished. They shouldered their packs one more time, newly laden with food supplied by the generous and Southern Command-compensated Cobbs.

  "Now for home," Duvalier said, turning on the road east once more.

  Chapter Five

  The Ozark Mountains, May: The Free Territory had its genesis here, among the river-cut limestone, caves, sinks, and thick forests of Americas oldest mountains. Like the armadillos and scorpions found in these timbered, rocky hills, the residents here are scattered, alert, tough, and dangerous. They know the stands of oak and hickory, trout-filled lakes and streams, and each other. But one area they avoid out of respect for its inhabitants, more wary and hermitlike than the most remote woodsmen. That is the ground around the headwaters of the Buffalo River, home to a cluster of Lifeweavers.

  The locals call them wizards. Some fear them as a branch of the Kurians and their otherworldly evils. When the residents come upon a Lifeweaver, perhaps among the beeches running along the river as he fills a cask with water, they gather their children and avert their eyes. The Lifeweavers draw trouble like corpses draw flies. The Reapers, when they break through the border cordon to stalk and slay amongst the Freeholders, gravitate to this area in the hopes of killing Kur's most ancient and bitter foe: their estranged brethren.

  Perched halfway up Mount Judea, a stoutly built A-frame lodge stands in a thick grove of mountain pine. The foundation of the building was cut from the old seabed a few miles away, thick slabs of varicolored stone that support the massive, red-timbered roof. Two monolithic lodgepoles of granite, etched with obscure designs that suggest Mayan hieroglyphs, gradually narrow toward the peaked roof. The building dwarfs any other house in the area; you would have to travel to the old resorts of the Mountain Home region to find a larger construct.

  The Cats of Southern Command call it Ryu's Hall or just the Hall. They also call it home.

  * * *

  Valentine liked the look of the building from when he first set eyes on it, in the afternoon of the day after leaving Cobb Smithy.

  "I was expecting another cave," Valentine said as they walked up the hill-cutting switchback leading to the Hall. 'This part of the Ozarks is full of them."

  "The Wolves like to lurk in their holes. We Cats like shared solitude and comfort," Duvalier said, leading the way with her swordstick used as a staff.

  "Shared solitude? Sounds like 'fresh out of the can' to me. Or 'military intelligence.'"

  "Watch it, Valentine. What 'military intelligence' Southern Command has feeds you now."

  He didn't need his Wolf's nose to scent pine trees and wood smoke. They were cheery and welcoming odors after their days on the road.

  The pair walked across a pebbled path to a metal-reinforced door. A cylinder of wrought iron with a thin steel bar hanging down the epicenter hung next to the door, and Duvalier rang it unti
l the hills echoed.

  A face appeared at a high, horizontal window. Female, amber skinned, with sharply slanting eyebrows. "Duvalier! You made good time with your new boy. Let me get the door."

  Valentine heard a heavy bolt being drawn back and noticed there was no knob or handle of any kind on the outside of the door. It moved, and he got a good view of the six-inch-thick timbers that constituted the main door.

  "David Valentine, meet Dix Welles," Duvalier said by way of introductions. "Dix was the toughest Cat between here and the Appalachians once upon a time."

  He noticed that the darkly attractive woman held herself very stiffly and used a cane. "That was a long time ago, before my back got busted up," Welles explained. She was wearing ordinary blue overalls and had a bag of tools hanging from her hip.

  "Pleased to meet you, ma'am—," Valentine began.

  "Dix does just fine, David. For the last—I guess it's nine years now—I've been the Old Man's assistant, or major-domo, or whatever it is I do here. Have you ever met Ryu, Valentine?"

  "No."

  "He's met his brother Rho, though," Duvalier said. Intrigued, Valentine looked at the two women. It never occurred to him that the Lifeweavers had families.

  "We can talk later," Welles interjected. "Come in, come in. I'll find you some space. We're almost empty right now. The Cats that wintered here left for the summer. About all that's here are some Aspirants like you, Valentine. What are we going to call you, anyway?"

  "Ghost," Duvalier answered. "Some of his old friends gave him that name in the Wolves."

  The conversation barely registered to Valentine. His eyes had adjusted, and he stood and gazed at the cavernous interior of the lodge.

  Ryu's Hall was one big room built around a central fireplace. The fire pit was a good thirty square feet, with a wide metal chimney that disappeared up into the dark rafters. Valentine's eyes followed the metal tube up to the peak of the ceiling, which he estimated to be at least sixty feet high. A series of beams crisscrossed above his head halfway to the roof, holding up two chandeliers. They glowed with formed drops of liquid illumination, bathing the entire lodge in a golden light and deep shadow.