by E. E. Knight
Finner 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 sign-age, no evidence of any kind of unit groupings. It reminded Valentine of some of the shantytowns 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.
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“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 the 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,” the 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 that one, as I remember, Captain . . . .”
“Ghost is what goes down on the 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 this started. I don’t—”
“We can catch up later, Lieutenant,” Randoph interjected. “I’m sure the General would like to hear this 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 nothing.
“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.
