by E. E. Knight
"They'll hit back hard when they figure out what you're doing. But if you can win that fight, it'll put cracks in the foundation of every Kurian tower east of the Mississippi. Remember that. Remember, also, that you're not alone, even in the darkest valley of fear. The people across the Mississippi hate the Kurians just as much as we do; they just don't get a chance to do anything about it. Is Javelin Brigade up for this challenge?"
Variations of "Sir."
"Yes," and fighting yips broke out in the cafeteria.
"Send 'em back to hell," General Lehman said.
With that, the meeting adjourned, though Seng somewhat killed the theatrical mood by announcing a new series of meetings starting before breakfast the next day.
* * * *
The columns marched out of camp in a drizzle. Valentine rode, but he stopped his horse across from the gate to admire the rare sight of Southern Command forces marching in step, swinging their arms in time, rifles over their shoulders.
"Good luck in Louisiana," someone called. Valentine wondered if he was a plant or just a camp civilian employee who'd picked up the rumor that they were heading south.
The general's color guard was present for the occasion. The pipes and drum set up a merry tune. Valentine thought it might be the hoary old sports perennial "Who Let the Bears Out?"—a favorite at basketball games.
"Next stop, New Orleans, Major," Rand called to him as his company wheeled to head south down the highway. He'd been coached to say it, and it sounded forced. Whatever his other strengths, Rand couldn't dissemble.
Valentine nudged his horse forward and took his place in the column at the head of his company. Their strange un-uniforms stood out so they marched at the rear, among the wagons, trucks, cook vans, and pack animals.
"That's a nice mule, mister," a woman's voice called from the crowd as Valentine walked the Morgan on the Maiden road. Valentine recognized the voice.
He searched the crowd.
"Molly!"
It was her. Valentine saw a tan, full-lipped face. Her blond hair shone even in the blustery spring gloom. She'd made an effort with her face and eyes.
He hadn't seen her in four years. The emotional rush almost unseated him from the Morgan.
They'd once been intimate—no, that wasn't fair, they'd once been lovers and passable friends. He'd met her on a long courier mission to the Great Lakes, when her family had helped an injured comrade of his. He'd gotten her family out of the Kurian Zone, and Molly as well, by a near miracle after she'd been arrested for the murder of an important Illinois mouthpiece. She'd become engaged to a Guard while he was in the Wolves.
Edward stood next to her in what Valentine guessed was his only pair of long pants, judging from the state of the knees. His dark, cowlick-filled hair looked like it had waged a morning-long guerrilla war against its combing. How old was he now? Six?
He'd lost his father before he'd been born, in Consul Solon's invasion. Graf Stockard was one of thousands missing in action from the "old" Ozark Free Territory.
Valentine turned his horse and got it out of the way of the marching column. Engines blatted and wheels creaked on by. He dismounted swiftly and Molly gave him a friendly hug.
"What in the world—"
"It's a long story," she said. "We made a special trip to see you off, Edward and I."
Molly had a small cap stuck in the belt of her overcoat. Valentine lifted it and checked the insignia.
"I purchase horses for Southern Command now. Do you remember Captain Valdez from Quapaw? He got me a job as a wrangler for the equine department at Selection and Purchase. I got promoted last year." She patted the Morgan's nose. "I might even have bought your mount. It's about the right age and from Half-Day Farms."
"Raccoon's a good horse," Valentine said. "I don't understand. You found me through Logistics?"
"Oh, no. I was worried about you, after—after that business where you were . . ."
Her eyes had lines at the edges. But then she spent a lot of time outside. Up close, the blond hair looked a trifle brittle. She hadn't had an easy time of it either, raising a son on her own.
"Arrested," Valentine said, coming back to the road.
Edward seemed fascinated with the butt of Valentine's .45. His eyes hardly left it.
"I wrote a letter. I wanted to know about your trial. It took forever to get an answer. A junior secretary in civil affairs, a very nice corporal named Dots. I guess she saw it in a pile and she wrote an answer. It's those long-service corporals who are always nicest to work with, I find."
Valentine would have introduced her to Glass if he had the time. He reminded himself to add a private message to Lambert on his first report.
"I'll have to thank Corporal Dots. I—it's nice to have someone see you off."
"She sent me a quickie a week ago, saying that your unit was moving out. I wondered that she kept track of you. I bet she's got a bit of a crush on you. She said you had a very handsome file photo."
Valentine saw her eyes flit to his scar and then his jawline. "Must have been an old photo."
She hooked her cheek with her index finger and showed a missing molar. "The years haven't been kind to either of us."
"You could get that fixed."
"Thought about it. But I stick my pencil there when I'm testing horses."
"Good luck, Daddy," Edward said.
Molly grabbed him at the shoulder. "Edward! We talked about this."
Raccoon seemed to sway first one way then another as Valentine used the horse's neck to hold himself up. "What?" he thought he said. Maybe it was just a choked exclamation.
Edward went wide-eyed in recognition of his own wrongdoing.
"You can't break promises like that," Molly continued. She looked to her left. "Mrs. Long, can you make sure he doesn't run under a truck?"
Mrs. Long looked like she wanted to hear the rest of the conversation. "Yes'm," she said. She gave Valentine a dirty look as Molly pulled him away.
"Edward, do me a favor, watch my horse," Valentine said, passing the reins to the boy.
The dodged between trucks and made it to the other side of the road, just missing Tiddle roaring along the column on his dirt bike. A soldier with a clipboard near the gate gave Valentine a curious look but didn't move to intervene.
They got out of the way of traffic and stood under a yew.
"David—" she said, hard and quiet. "I'm so sorry about that. I've been stupid."
"Molly—it's not possible."
"Of course it's not possible. David, there's so much you don't know. About Edward's father."
Obviously there was, if Molly wasn't willing to call him her husband. . . .
"Molly, it's not my business. But how?"
"I told you, I was stupid," she repeated. "I... I didn't show you when you visited that time, but I've got a drawer with some pictures of you. That old scarf of yours you gave me that winter in Minnesota. Two paper clippings too, one showing you getting a decoration, or was it a promotion? It was while you were fighting in Texas. I keep the letters from you in there too. It's not like a shrine or anything. I've just always wanted you to do well with your Cause."
"I still don't see the stupid part," Valentine said.
"Edward got to the age where he got snoopy. He was poking around in the drawer and saw all the stuff they'd written about you. He said he remembered you being at our house, God knows how."
"He called me his father," Valentine said.
"Yes. I don't keep pictures of his father around the house. I thought, What'll it hurt if I shave the truth a little? If things had fallen together a little differently, you might have been."
Valentine, who'd calmly given orders with the gigantic shells of a massive Grog cannon called the Crocodile making the earth ripple beneath his feet, stood dumbstruck.
"Oh, it doesn't matter any more." She wiped the corners of her eyes.
"Here," she said, passing him a packet extracted from her overcoat. "Three chamois. They're th
e best Texas kid I could find. I embroidered your initials into the corner. Not like my mom could do, but I did my best. You can use them for your boots or guns."
Valentine didn't know what to give her. The only piece of jewelry he owned was that brass ring acquired from Seattle. "Molly, I—"
"Sorry about Edward. I can tell him the truth."
"You know my name's under something of a cloud, officially."
"Yes. I had this reporter ask me about you, by the way. I wonder how he got my name."
"A reporter?"
"For the Clarion. His name's Qwait. Ever met him?"
The column had finally passed. Valentine felt the eyes of the small crowd who'd turned out in the rain focus on them. "No. It's not important. I'll leave Edward to your judgment. I'm honored, in a way." He paused. "I need to catch up to my men. I'll write you, if I get back."
"When you get back," she said. "You won in Texas. You'll do the same in Louisiana—or wherever you're really going."
Molly always was smart, or maybe just sensitive to lies.
He trotted back across the road and retrieved his horse.
"I'm sorry, Momma," Edward said.
"Edward, there's nothing for you to be sorry about. I should be saying sorry to you."
Mrs. Long stepped back, staring at him as though wishing to shorten him by at least the length of his shins.
Valentine wondered what he could leave Edward with. He opened a shirt pocket and took out his battered old compass.
"Edward, do you know what this is?" he asked.
"An officer compass."
"An officer's compass, yes. With one of these and a good map, you're never lost." He handed it to the boy and mounted.
"Thank you, Father," Edward said, wide-eyed again.
"He's got your hair," Mrs. Long said, approving for a change.
Molly tightened his girth. "You're good, Major," she said.
"Good God, man, kiss her good-bye," Mrs. Long huffed. "What's this world coming to?"
Molly blushed. Valentine had never kissed a woman from saddleback before. It wasn't as easy as it looked in the movies; he almost fell on top of her.
"Uh. Thanks," Molly squeaked.
Valentine rode on in the tangled tracks of the column, trying to catch up. He passed a member of the general's color guard dumping rainwater out of his drumhead.
Irony. That's what it was. He had a daughter in the Caribbean who thought he was an uncle, and a son in St. Louis that ninety-nine out of a hundred would insist was an abomination and demand to be destroyed. Now this tousle-haired boy was calling him Daddy. Or Father, when he remembered his manners.
God is just, but that doesn't mean he lacks humor, Father Max used to say.
"Amen," Valentine muttered, clicking his horse into a trot.
Chapter Six
Breakthrough, western Tennessee, March: Operation Javelin and Colonel (later General) Seng’s march to the Virginias, later to studied and debated—turning point or footnote?—with good arguments on both sides, began with a masterstroke.
The thousand foot Kurian tower at Mississippi Point had stood for two generations. Every now and then Southern Command would bring some heavy artillery forward and shell it for an hour or so, just to see the light show as mysterious rippling bands of violet rose and detonated the shells a mile from target. The scientists from the Miskatonic attending these shows tried to study the effect with their poor collection of instruments but always left flummoxed.
The Kurian in that tower controlling the Mississippi between Memphis and Paducah is called "the Goobermaker." Even the best Hunter, sneaking into the woods around that tower, slowly becomes confused and disoriented. The more cautious, or maybe luckier, staggered away, underwear sometimes loaded like a sopping, sagging diaper, wondering what their name is. Most recover their sensibilities and memory eventually.
The Miskatonic consider the Goobermaker a powerful Kurian, feudal lord to sub-Kurians stretching from the outskirts of Nashville to Memphis and into southwestern Kentucky. He makes claim to the river as well, extracting tolls for water traffic, and ever more exorbitant fees in auras for cargo cutting across his territory to the Ohio or the Tennessee when Southern Commmand gets the upper hand against the gunboats of the river patrol.
David Valentine always chuckled and dismissed his participation in the assault as being "on the bench—when I wasn't sitting in the bus with my helmet."
* * * *
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Glass said on his return from the ammo dump with the last boxes of brass, lead, and smokeless powder for the .50s.
"'Are you fucking kidding me, sir, Corporal,'" Valentine corrected. "You'll follow orders, just like me. No matter how ridiculous."
It was the last week of February and spring peeped through the twigs and breaks in the iron gray clouds as a bitterly cold storm blowing in from Canada exhausted itself somewhere over southern Missouri.
Their assault barge yawned before them at the end of a boarding plank. It was a Kurian transport for aura fodder, and someone had painted the inside a soothing pink. It looked like a giant mouth extending a sickly, rusted tongue held down by a twelve-foot depressor.
Valentine smelled of sandalwood. He'd treated himself to a long shower to relieve the jump-off tension.
He looked out at his company through the Halloween mask rubber-banded across his face. The soldiers looked like a bunch of burned matches, with tinfoil wrapped around their head except for eyeholes.
Glass submitted to having tinfoil wrapped around his head and spray-painted dull black. Patel helped him poke eyeholes and breathing apertures in it.
"At lest it's warm," Glass muttered. His heavy-weapons Grogs already had their masks on. Some artiste in the company had formed tinfoil strands into horns on the Grogs' heads.
"Hey, Sergeant Major," a soldier called. "Shiny side out, remember? Glass's grouchy enough without getting brain bake."
"It doesn't matter," Patel said, securing Glass's headpiece with a rubber band at the forehead.
It wasn't a very good joke, but Valentine was relieved to hear it. The men smelled nervous, that sharp electric acid odor of anxiety.
Word had filtered up through the NCOs that some of the men were remembering what happened to Quislings caught fighting for Southern Command. The Kurians developed imaginative and painful manners of extracting auras from those guilty of such treasons.
Every Southern Command soldier knew that, if captured, they could probably expect to be shuttled to some work camp or other— they were young and fit, after all. Officers could expect a good deal of interrogation. Leading figures of the resistance, majors, colonels, and especially generals could expect a long period of wear and tear under drugs or blunter instruments before the inevitable show trial. Valentine could never find it in himself to condemn those captured in the Kurian Zone who confessed to plans ranging from blowing up hospitals to poisoning Youth Vanguard bake-sale cookies, because the confession was undoubtedly forced and false.
"We're ordered to load, sir," Preville said. Preville was a nearsighted company com tech with an old Motorola headset wired to the pack radio. He made do with some old round glass women's frames that didn't do much for his face. Valentine, through Rand, had insisted that he see a Southern Command doc and get some regulation glasses, but Preville liked how he looked in his lenses. The new ones hadn't shown up in time anyway.
Patel had overheard, so all Valentine had to do was nod.
"Load up and board! Load up and board!" Patel bellowed.
Word had it that General Lehman was watching the embarkation, going from formation to formation giving a last few words of encouragement. He hadn't made it to Valentine's group.
Odd-looking and inhuman in the painted tinfoil that obscured hair and ears, they filed into the barge.
"Enjoy, guys," Valentine said. "This'll be the easiest part of the whole trip."
With Ediyak, the company clerk, and Preville trailing behind, Valentine boarded. "Last
on gets to be first on the Kurian shore," he said.
The Skeeter Fleet and Logistics Commandos who'd arranged for the barges had chalked all sorts of helpful messages on the inside. Valentine could see two:
Thank you for choosing mudskipper cruise lines we accept responsibility for nothing but getting you over and hauling your body back.
and
Tetanus Shots Are Recommended For All Passengers.
When the recently constructed loading doors closed, Valentine saw another.
No point worrying about it now.
A single overworked tug, a temporary buoy, and various lines from smaller craft working together got them across, with some help from the Mississippi current. Someone discovered that knife hilts made decent drumsticks on the barge's side, and soon there were two dueling syncopations.
Bee stamped out a pretty good 4/4 base beat as she hung on to the drooping camouflage netting hanging across the open top of the barge.
Valentine wondered what the sentries on the other side of the river made of it all. A couple of sentries would get their sergeant, who would get an officer, who would probably call in an even higher officer, who would give the alarm.
This part of the operation was secret enough that even Valentine knew only the outline. His only orders were to get in column with the rest of Jolla's command and move out to the northeast along an old highway.
They splashed ashore in darkness, fiddling and adjusting the tinfoil headdresses as they waded in the slough between two sandbars, heading for blue signal lights on the shore proper. Upstream and down there were more boats and barges landing, and the riverbank echoed with the throbbing engine of the tug, the honking cries of outraged mules, and the low, firm voices of sergeants and corporals who could manage to make their softly spoken words carry through all the noise without shouting. Valentine saw lines of craft of all descriptions waiting to vomit out men and material.
Sailors and Logistics Commandos had set up lines, and netted bags full of gear came ashore like a parade of lumpy bats swinging in the wind. Someone had hung a portable radio from a tree, where it muttered out love songs in tribute to expectant and new mothers everywhere. In between the songs were tips on prenatal health and nursing given by a woman with precise, softly hypnotic diction.
