by E. E. Knight
"Gratifying as gratis liquor is," Brother Mark said, "shouldn't you be writing orders by now?"
"Keep out of solemn military traditions, Brother," Jolla said. "I'm still waiting to hear what the Green Mountain Boys intend to do."
"They intend to leave unless we do something," Valentine said tightly.
"I've made up my mind about that. First, the toast."
Valentine accepted his glass and pushed his hair back with his left while he tipped most of the liquor out with right, feeling a little like a cheap stage musician. He covered the glass with his fingers.
Jolla stood. "First, to the memory of General Seng. May his example inspire future generations of officers."
It's sure not inspiring the present generation, Valentine thought. Seng wouldn't want us drinking to his memory. If he were still running the brigade, we'd be arguing with the Green Mountain Boys over whose rope would be used to hang the ringleaders of the ambush in town.
"Now, I've come to a decision. After consulting with Southern Command and a careful assessment, I've decided our position here in West Virginia is untenable. Remaining here would seem to assure our destruction."
That got their interest. The shifting and note taking ceased from everyone but Jolla's military secretary.
"We were misinformed—note that I say misinformed, not misled, Brother Mark—as to the support we would receive from the local populace. We've found plans drawn up against us. The enemy executed a masterful ruse and struck just as we were busy congratulating ourselves on our own cleverness."
The word "masterful" poked at Valentine. He'd just heard it— where? He need to think.
Jolla didn't give him time. "My one hope now is that the Kurians will allow us to leave quietly. God knows, the Kurians prefer carefully controlled bloodshed. They don't like battles any more than we do."
"Sir," Bloom protested.
Jolla held up his hand.
"I've made up my mind. Now there's just a matter of choosing a route and an order of march. We'll need a strong fore guard and an even more capable rear guard if this operation is to succeed."
"There's no doubt that the guerrillas exist," Brother Mark said. "I've seen the reports of the damage they've done. For all we know, they're trying to reach us at this moment."
Jolla frowned. "In view of the situation we find ourselves, perhaps you should leave retrieving the situation to the professionals. I'm sure we'll need your diplomatic expertise on the way home. Perhaps you could turn your thoughts to that."
Brother Mark returned to his chair and put his head down. Valentine saw his lips moving.
Valentine wondered at Jolla's manner. Did men in the midst of some kind of mental breakdown acquire a new vocabulary? The cadence and pronunciation were right, but the words seemed unusually fussy and chosen, as though they'd been preprinted. But the personality, the attitude, was Jolla! Gage would probably have slapped Brother Mark down hard. Seng would have turned a frowning fish stare on him until he withdrew his objection and apologized for intruding onto military matters. Jolla was the same polite, go-along-and-get-along self.
Valentine heard two flies turning pirouettes over a tub that held some dirty plates and utensils from the headquarters breakfast. An opportunistic spider was already at work on a web.
How far do your strands extend, Kurian?
"Now, Colonel Bloom will assume command of the regulars and be second in command in the event something happens to me. Valentine, I need a new chief of staff. Can your lieutenant take over your company?"
Valentine turned cold. He could just see the headlines in the Clarion. Scraping the Barrel Bottom: Disgraced, Condemned Ojficer Organized Humiliating Retreat in Appalachian Disaster.
"Rand's a good man, sir. As to me being the new chief. . . perhaps someone already from the headquarters would do better."
Jolla fingered the buttons of his field jacket. "In an hour like this, you're—you're saying no?"
"May we speak for a moment privately, sir?"
Jolla nodded. They both angled for a corner of the tent and spoke with their backs to the rest of the assembly. Valentine heard whispering behind.
"Sir, I don't have anything like the training. I've done my share of reading, but I haven't led military forces since Archangel. I'm a lieutenant who found himself with a major's cluster. Until Seng gave me his texts, most of the training and experience I had above the platoon level was leading Quisling formations, after a manner."
"You never struck me as the kind to crayfish when responsibility comes your way, Major. Of course, if you really believe you're not up to the job, I'll select someone else. If I didn't think you were the best man for the job, I wouldn't have selected you."
"Thank you for your confidence, sir. But..." Valentine grasped for the right words but they got lost somewhere between his brain and his larynx.
"I'll add a 'but' of my own. But, well, I need you right now, Valentine. The men like me well enough, but we need another Seng, God rest him, and I don't think liking me's enough. They need to believe in something. I've never been all faith and vision like Karas, or brilliant like Seng."
"Quiet plodders have won their share of wars, sir," Valentine offered.
"This war's over before it even got going. Turns out the Kurians have been one step ahead of us the whole time. The troops need to believe we'll get them out of this.
"Chief of staff isn't easy, I know," Jolla continued. "You'll be running your legs off. I've been in the service about as long as you've been alive, Valentine. I've watched the men when you're around. They look at you and then they talk. You wouldn't believe some of the stories floating around about you. They bring ideas and complaints to you. There aren't many in Southern Command—at least good ones—who can boast of that. Then there's that business with your nose, that tingle. Even if it's just luck, well, luck counts for something in life. Thirty years service proved that to me too."
Valentine's throat tightened. "Very well, sir. Then, as chief of staff, I'd like to propose taking one good crack at these Moondaggers before we leave."
"No. I'm certain we're outnumbered. Even a win could doom us. I want to keep the brigade intact. Let's save their lives for future use."
"As chief of staff, I'd like permission to coordinate our departure with the Green Mountain command and the legworm riders."
"Granted. Hope you don't mind working from Nowak's cubby. Now, let's get back to the meeting."
Valentine tried to pay attention to the rest—the empty congratulations for himself and Bloom, the anxious silence from Brother Mark, who stared and stared and stared at folia as if he were studying some strange species of animal.
But all he could think about was how Jolla could be so certain that they were outnumbered.
* * * *
Valentine broke the news quickly to Rand. Rand suggested some kind of farewell dinner was in order; Valentine left the details to him.
"Don't think I'm not going to keep riding your backs," he told the NCOs who gathered as the news spread.
"Congratulations," Patel said.
"More like condolences," Glass said. "He's been giving command of the Titanic ten minutes after the iceberg."
"I don't want any of you to worry," Valentine said, hopping up into the bed of one of the company supply wagons. "Javelin's not about to surrender to the Kurians or anyone else. We're going back under our own terms, and God help anyone who gets in our way."
They cheered that. Spin, they used to call it. The idea of fighting their way back appealed a lot more than being chased out of the Appalachians with their tails between their legs.
Valentine waved Patel over.
"If you want a little garnish around your star," Valentine said, "I can appoint a new command sergeant major for the brigade. You'd be at the top of my list. Less hiking and more riding."
Patel smiled but shook his head. "Douglas is doing a good job, filling in for poor Reygarth. In any case, I am stuck shepherding a promising but raw lieu
tenant again."
"I'm sorry I got you into this, Nilay."
"You did not get me into anything. I had little to do at home but read the newspapers and remember. It is good to be out of the rocking chair and in country. This is my life; that was just waiting. You know, my knees have not felt so good in years."
"You're a hell of a wrestler, Patel, but you can't lie for crap. You always blink when you're lying."
"You could have told me this, sir, before I lost six months' pay in poker games back in LeHavre's company."
"Here's my last company command: You ride on the company legworm. That's an order. Hear that, Rand?"
"Yes, Major," Rand said.
"Rand's my witness."
He slept for an hour, and then summoned Brother Mark. "I think we need to pay a call on the Kentucky Alliance. It would be safer for us if we left as a group, or at least traveled parallel paths so we could support each other in case the Kurians have a follow-up trick. Not much we can do for the Green Mountain Boys, but Southern Command and the Kentucky Alliance can stick together."
''Your caution does you credit, but are you sure we can't change the colonel's mind? He strikes me as a man suffering from a shock. In a day or two he may be amenable."
Valentine shook his head. "I have my orders to follow. We're turning around and heading back. I've got to figure out how best to put that into effect."
"Seems to me the great flaw in your formidable, pyramidal military machine is that it depends too much on the trained monkey working the controls."
"As a civilian, you're allowed to express that opinion."
"Tell me what you think, Valentine. That's one of the reasons that I headed south when I left the Church. Your Southern Command sounded more like a band of brothers united by common cause."
"Colonel Jolla's orders will be followed, and that's that. Southern Command's got a bunch of handy, rarely used regulations just in case you try to interfere with his command. Most of them involve a noose."
"Don't you have a noose around your neck too, Major?"
"Just get yourself ready to visit the Alliance again."
* * * *
At the Alliance camp, they found a rather more informal debate proceeding in a sort of corral formed by tied-down legworms. Riders sat on their animals, or hung off the sides, or gathered in little lounging groups in the center of the circle, each clustering close to their own clan.
"He told us all we had to do was go home! Matches my wants, so what are we waiting for?" a Wildent asked.
"He also told us to throw down our long guns, Geckie," a man in a sagging, shapeless cloth hat yelled back. "I don't trust a man who makes me being unarmed part of the deal."
"You calling me a coward?" the one called Geckie yelled back over the heads.
"No, but it's mighty interesting that that's the first word that popped into your head, isn't it?"
"I don't care if you're head rider or dispatcher. You're challenged to a duel at your convenience, Gunslinger." Cheers and claps and whistles broke out, along with a few boos.
"Right now's pretty convenient to me. Fists until one man goes down."
"So much for the alliance," Brother Mark said.
"That Last Chance fellow said we could go. Who needs Virginia anyway?" a rider from the Wildcats shouted to general approval
"West Virginia," someone corrected.
"You lousy bunch of cowards," Tikka told the Bulletproof and anyone else listening. She stepped into the center of a hostile circle. "You call yourselves men—more than that, Bulletproof men? I've never heard of such a bunch of sunshine strikers. Sure, when it looks easy you all want a piece of the fight. But when the fight comes to you, it's hook up and run. You wormcast. No, not even wormcast. The wildflowers grow prettier on wormcast. You're more like slag from one of the mines around here: dull, cold, and useful as dry dirt.
"You're the Bulletproof and the Bulletproof is you," a grizzled rider with the Coonskins responded.
"Not anymore," the new leader of the Mammoths said. "We're still the Alliance. We've had enough of their edicts and requisitions and demands. We've thrown in with the Cause and we'll finish with it or be finished."
* * * *
In the end, they spit into three parts.
The Green Mountain Boys headed north, hard and fast in a sprint toward friendly territory, leaving their heavy gear and a good deal of their supply train behind.
The Kentucky Alliance was the first to visit the abandoned camp and cleaned it out of the choicest gear like the first family back to the house of a deceased relative after the funeral.
The Perseids gave up outright. Bereft of Karas, they groped like lost children for a solution. Valentine watched them march and ride toward Utrecht and hoped the Kurians meant their promise not to harm any who gave up, for their sake.
The rest of the Kentucky Alliance turned for home in four separate columns. Valentine rode his Morgan hard from column to column, with Bee loping behind, and assured them that Southern Command's forces would come to the aid of any who were attacked, but the leadership looked doubtful.
And so the bright and shining dream of a new Freehold left Kentucky. Though a bristling rear guard scouted for Moondagger troops who had yet to appear, Valentine couldn't help feeling they were abandoning the Virginias with their tails tucked between their legs.
Chapter Ten
Withdrawl: Directing a successful retreat can be as difficult as an advance.
Eastern Kentucky offers some advantages to javelin and its legworm-riding allies. Mountain passes could be easily held against greater numbers—though this could be worked to their disadvantage as well, if the Moondaggers could slip around behind them. The mountains also serve as screens, and the clouds frequently trapped by the peaks hid them from aerial observation.
As Napoleon learned on his way back from Moscow, the most problematic of all is the threat a retreat poses to morale. A beaten army, like an often-whipped horse, lacks the dash and spirit needed to fight a successful battle. Any setback or check threatens a collapse of discipline and a rout. Understandably, the soldiers become shy of risk.
Worse, they come to see every mile of land as an enemy between them and their goal. Food, clothing, and shelter can be obtained at rifle point from the locals. Friction, any mechanic can tell you, is an enemy to speed and smooth function.
Worst of all, they might see the slower-moving elements as hindrances to the all-important goal of getting home. A retreating army will dissolve like sugar spread in the rain, lost to desertion and despair.
* * * *
Valentine's earliest woe as chief of staff was handling the Kentucky Alliance. He couldn't order, he could only suggest. He had to ask for riders to watch their flanks, to take their mounts up mountains, to go ahead and seize passes and rickety old railroad bridges the vehicles could bump across.
At meetings with the company commanders, he forced himself to bluster and threaten regarding treatment of the locals, up to and including hangings for crimes of violence. If the collection of captains and lieutenants thought him a tyrant, drunk on newfound power, so much the better. He'd be the bad guy, the glowering, uncompromising stickler for regs, if it would keep the soldiers from doing anything to turn the populace against his side.
And he made it clear that responsibility would flow uphill for once.
* * * *
They found a sample of Moondagger mercy the third morning out, planted right along the road they were using to retreat out of West Virginia.
They came to a clearing of freshly cut trees, with bits and pieces of broken guns smashed over the stumps. A black and gray mound with a charnel-house reek sat in a circle of heat-hardened ground.
Tikka, riding with a few Bulletproof at the head of the column, identified the bodies as belonging to the Mammoth clan, God knew how. The unarmed men had been thrown into wooden cages and burned. From the burned heads and arms forcing their way between the charred bars, Valentine guessed they'd still
been alive when the fires had been set.
Looking at the clenched teeth behind burned away lips, Valentine would have rather gone to the Reapers.
Valentine put his old company to work clearing the bodies and burying them in the loose soil of the grown-over slag heap of a mine in a mountain's pocket just off the road.
"Sorry, men," he said, a handkerchief tied around his face to keep him from breathing ash that might be wood, clothing, or human flesh. "The brigade can't march through this."
Brother Mark rode up on muleback to have a look and say a few words over the departed. "This is their method, men," he told the parties at work moving the bodies. "They talk you into giving up your guns, and without your gun what's to stop them from taking whatever they want? Resistance is a guarantee of dignity and an honorable death."
"Come down here and help pick up these charcoal briquettes that used to be hands and feet," a man said to his coworker. "We can have a nice little talk about dignity."
"Enough of that, there," Patel barked.
Company scouts caught up with a disheveled trio, hobbling bootless up the road toward Kentucky. Glass sent Ford galumphing back to request Valentine's help with them.
They made a pathetic sight. One's eyes were bandaged, as were one's ears, and the third had dried blood caked on his chin.
"We are the blind, deaf, and dumb," the blinded man said. Valentine saw a light band on his finger where a wedding band had been. The Moondaggers certainly weren't above a little theft. "Testament to ... er—."
The tongueless man tugged on the blinded one's sleeve and said, "Ebbatren ob ah'oolisheh."
"Yes, testament to the foolishness of those who deny the evidence of their senses as to the supremacy of the Ever-living Gods. The Moondaggers did this for the good of others we might meet."
"You were with the Mammoth?" Valentine asked.
The tongueless man gave a groan, and took the deaf man's hand and squeezed it.
"There are only two kinds of people," the deaf man said loudly. "The graced and the fallen. We are warning to the fallen."
