The Allegheny Alliance, West Virginia, June: The campaign surrounding the great union in the Alleghenies near the town of Utrecht is one more men claimed to be at than ever were. Or if not themselves in person, a brother, a cousin, an uncle or aunt, or a cousin-laid down like a trump card when veterans get together to talk about their experiences in the Liberation. (Only writers of lurid exploitative novels title the fight against the Kurian Order the "Vampire Wars.")
It's safe to say that Utrecht, West Virginia, had never seen such a feast, even during holidays during the platinum age pre-2022. The town square had a smaller square of groaning white-clothed banquet tables set up within. The old pedestal in front of the courthouse that had once contained a memorial to First World War veterans (replaced by a statue of a Reaper holding a human baby up so it could look up at the stars, and happily sawn off at the ankles the week before when the "guerrilla army" occupied the town) had a new set of stairs, as well as platform and loudspeaker system for speechmaking. Most said Special Executive Karas had been working on a stemwinder for months, looking forward to this moment.
For David Valentine, out of thousands readying themselves for a party of special magnificence, the night held little promise.
David Valentine drove the cart back into company headquarters, fighting tears. All around the people were putting up colorful bunting (red, white, and blue or yellow being the colors of choice, but some folks were making due with tinsel and other old Christmas decorations).
Blueberries were in season, and Bee happily scooped out an entire pie Ediyak purchased for her. Ediyak was whistling Southern Command marching tunes, rather off-key. Every storefront had fresh baked goods for sale, and around the back door bottles and flasks and mason jars of liquor were being passed out in exchange for everything from gold or silver coin to overcoats, old eyeglasses, and boots.
Southern Command's officers and NCOs spoiled not a few prospective evenings by checking packs and ammunition pouches of those traveling to and from town.
Valentine pulled himself together enough to institute a liquor search of his own when he returned, and three bottles were emptied into the thirsty Allegheny dirt and Patel had new miscreants for latrine and garbage duty. Though he'd laid out his best uniform for the banquet, the prospect of a feast had lost all its luster and he decided not to attend. He checked in at headquarters and swapped purchases he'd made in town for twenty-four duty-free hours after the banquet. He wanted quiet and solitude.
Jolly was left in command of the camp. He said he'd heard enough speeches about Kurian tactics of fear never conquering the human spirit in his life. But he almost ordered Valentine to go.
"If anyone deserves a good feed, it's you, Valentine," he said. "You've kept us in fresh eggs and vegetables for three months."
Moytana saved him from being ordered to attend by appearing. His Wolf patrols were routed or posted, and this bit of Virginia was at peace, though they had intercepted some high-ranking Quislings scuttling north with a couple wagons of clothing and valuables, and Moytana needed orders.
Valentine, hearing that the brigade was still attending to basics despite the festival, went to the commissary and got a sandwich. He found a comfortable stump and watched the partiers depart. Seng led the way with several other officers, some with hardy wives and husbands who'd come along for the march, plus select NCOs and regular soldiers-the wounded or those deserving of special consideration. Music echoed up from the Kentucky hills.
He finished his sandwich. Tasteless, despite the fresh vegetables and mayonnaise.
Duvalier waited for him in his tent. She was reclining in his hammock, her boots off and her bony feet greasy with something that smelled of lanolin and mint. "What's got you down?"
she asked, dropping a Kurian newspaper bearing a headline about a rail accident in Kentucky.
"I was in town," Valentine said. He decided to tell her. Talking might ease the heartache.
Ahn-Kha's loss was real, fresh and raw again like a stripped scab. "I saw a Golden One.
Thought it was Ahn-Kha. It wasn't."
She sat up. "That bites. I-I can't believe it. I heard the stories about him organizing the partisans."
"Ahn-Kha's not the only Grog who could organize a revolt. This one wasn't as well-spoken.
I got about three words out of him," Valentine said. "He's probably wary of strange uniforms."
"This is still a big deal, Val. You helped make it happen. I remember you laboring over reports about Kentucky, when we wintered. You had a stack of papers the size of-well, you remember."
Valentine didn't say anything, willing her to be as miserable as he was.
"In a way, it's still Ahn-Kha's victory. You decided Southern Command could march across Kentucky, what with the Kurians few and far between in the legworm ranch country."
"I know."
"Look, I should just say it: I was an ass to you back then. You were killing yourself looking for Ahn-Kha. I thought you were wasting your time, tried to slap you out of it. Plus we fought about that baby Reaper. Is it doing well? Did you tame it-er, him?"
"Blake's well enough. Growing fast. I don't think anyone but Narcisse could have brought him up."
"Want to talk about Ahn-Kha some more?"
"No," Valentine said. He hated the celebration he was missing. It felt like a dance on the Golden One's grave.
"I've got a bottle," she said, patting one pocket on her long coat. "Want a drink?"
"I ordered everyone in camp searched," Valentine growled.
"If they can't locate someone, it's a lot harder to search them," Duvalier said. "You've got some good guys here, but they're not that good."
He could stand her company. She'd known Ahn-Kha almost as long as he had. "Pour it out. I don't want liquor in the camp. We'll arrange passes soon so people can go into town if they want to get drunk."
"I'll do no such thing. There's no swiping liquor. I had to buy that with some of Karas' funny money."
"Strange that they took his coin. Or did you offer a little personal bonus to get the boozer"
"Fuck off. I've blown a few sentries to get over a bridge or through a fence, but I'm no whore." She angrily shoved the bottle back into the coat.
Valentine retrieved his ten-dollar piece from his pocket. It was crude, and it had nothing more than the word of some jumped-up legworm rancher behind it. Maybe the citizens of Utrecht were swept up by patriotic fervor.
"I sometimes think we fight just to keep from falling in love," Duvalier said.
Valentine almost dropped the coin.
She rolled on her side, not the easiest thing to do in a hammock. "So, you going to dance with me at the glam-up? I'll get dressed. Ediyak has a civilian skirt and a top she said she'd loan me." She gripped the edge of the hammock and put her delicate chin over the edge, smiling like the Cheshire cat after a three-canary meal.
"I volunteered to stay in camp," Valentine said, shaking his head. "Speaking of which, my four hours starts soon."
"I'm not a fan of parties either. But I did go to the trouble of swiping some new underwear.
Cute knit stuff, like lace from a fancy doily."
"Ali, these people are patriots," Valentine said. "It's not some KZ three-dollar store."
"I guess so. They're making a very patriotic profit on fresh bread and pies for the soldiers who liberated them."
In worthless coin, Valentine thought. Something about that was bothering him.
"Do me a favor. Stick close, okay? I want to talk to you when I get off."
"That sounds kinda perverted for sterling Major Valentine," she said.
With the tent next to empty, his duty time at brigade headquarters crawled. So he spent it roving. He walked the posts, checked the firewood and water supply, saw to it that no one had dug the latrines so they drained toward the food preparation area. The reserve supply dumps were still being built and a mini-backhoe was still at work digging magazines for their small supply of artillery.
Seng had chosen the spot for their new base well. Utrecht stood on the heel of a short mountain range, at a crossroads that would allow a shift northeast up either side of a mountain ridge, or to the southwest, and there were further cuts east and west, old roads and disused rail lines that were in poor shape but better than hacking one's way through woody mountains. At the last officers' meeting, Seng had stated that the first order of business would be a new survey of the area; Seng wanted to know every cow path and bike trail.
Valentine's company would probably be put to work improving old roads or creating connecting trails.
Valentine thought he saw the shape of the coming campaign. He guessed Seng hoped to imitate Jackson's Valley Campaign from the American Civil War near Winchester just on the other side of the Appalachians, as a matter of fact, popping in and out of mountain passes and sliding up and down roads to catch the Kurian forces unawares.
Even now Valentine saw some dozens of legworms being driven into a brushy area south of town, on the other side of a twisting, turning stream where he saw some old, collapsed roofs. Ever since the linkup with Karas's group of rebel tribes, Seng had his regulars learning to handle the creatures. Legworms didn't need much more width than a jeep, and they never got stuck in mud or hung up on a rock. He watched them feed their way into the tangle of bush and young trees. They'd soon have it grazed down into open country, potential pasture or field.
Legworms were better than a Bush Hog.
Some of the goats he'd purchased back on the Cumberland Plateau had made the long trip.
Valentine paused to scratch one. A few of the men were already developing a taste for goat milk. He wondered if they had anyone with cheesemaking experience in the brigade.
The wind was blowing sound away from the torchlit town, but every now and then when the wind died he thought he caught words punctuated by music.
At the end of his duty he made a brief report to Jolla, who was dozing in a chair in his office near the headquarters tent. He turned the duty over to Nowak and left, walking past Brother Mark's tent. Valentine's ears heard soft snores form within. The old churchman had pushed himself hard, riding ahead with parties of Wolves, setting up meetings and last-minute details for the unification.
He wondered why he wasn't at the party. Brother Mark, from what he could tell, led a rather Spartan existence. Maybe he didn't like parties.
Duvalier waited in his tent. The soft, comforting aroma of a woman in the canvas-enclosed air was more welcoming than the thermos of coffee she opened on his return.
Instead of some dripping trophy, she'd brought two big slices of cherry cobbler. She smelled faintly of sandalwood too.
"You snuck a little whiskey into this," Valentine said, trying the coffee.
"Just a tetch, as they say here. I think we deserve a celebration too.
Valentine sipped the coffee, thinking of Malita in Jamaica. The coffee had been real there.
Had the emotional connection been fake? What was real and what was wishful thinking-on both their parts- in this little hillside tent?
Duvalier leaned on the tent pole, sipping hers.
"You used to joke all the time about sexing me up. I think you're the only man who crossed the whole state of Kansas with a hard-on."
"Twenty-three will do that to you. My balls did my thinking for me whenever you seemed approachable. You used to say, what was it-"
"Dream on, Valentine," they said in unison. They both giggled.
She kissed him, softly, on the lips. Looking up into his eyes, she smiled. "There's a grand alliance forming down there, helped along with liquor and barbecue. I think tonight's a night for dreams coming true.
It was so tempting. He could forget everything, thrusting into her. He could find oblivion in satisfying lust the way some men lost themselves in drink, or at the green gaming tables, or in swirling clouds of narcotics. So tempting. No more thoughts of Ahn-Kha's face, those curious townies peering at him from behind quilted curtains, the apparently bottomless supply of alcohol ...
Valentine put his hands on her, tickled the back of her neck. "But we d-
The krump of an explosion interrupted him. The distant pop -pop -pop of small arms fire followed.
Duvalier's brow furrowed. "I hope that's fireworks."
Valentine grabbed his pistol belt and sword and poked his head out of the tent. No comforting bursts of fireworks filled the mountain valley, but there were red flares firing in the air above the Green Mountain Boys' encampment. He couldn't see the town, but the torchlight glow in the sky over it was almost gone.
"I've got to get to headquarters," he said.
"I know," she said. "Where do you want me?"
"If any of your fellow Cats are in camp, round them up and report to Moytana's headquarters."
The corner of her mouth turned up. "It was a nice moment, while it lasted."
"It was," Valentine agreed. He trotted a few feet over to company HQ as the brigade bugle sounded officers' call.
Rand was already up and Patel came into their two-pole headquarters tent carrying his boots and his rifle. Red Dog was running around, excited in the commotion but not looking at all frightened. That gave Valentine some comfort.
"I'm going to brigade," Valentine said. "Preville, come along in case I need a messenger.
I've no news, other than that something's wrong. Assemble the men with full field kit and three days' rations. Make sure the reserve dehydrated food and ammunition reserves are handy.
Get a meal into the men if there's anything hot handy."
They nodded. Patel just kept putting on his boots. Preville patted back some rather straggly hair over his ears that made him look more than ever like a revolutionary intellectual.
Valentine could rely on them. He hurried to brigade headquarters, saw Duvalier's head bobbing off toward the Hunters' collection of tents within the larger encampment. Lights died out all over camp, and she vanished as a lantern was extinguished. He tried to let the red hair take his regrets with it.
He beat Moytana into the headquarters by fifteen seconds. Others trickled in, way, way too many junior officers who missed the celebration thanks to privileges of rank. Nowak was speaking to someone over a field phone.
Major Bloom stood behind, looking like a pit bull waiting for the release. From her position, Valentine guessed she was the temporary senior for the Guards.
Jolla's balding head glistened. He kept wiping it with a handkerchief. "There's been some kind of disturbance in town. We don't know anything more than that."
"Observers report the firing is dying down. There's still some torchlight and lanterns in the town square, but the rest of the lights in town are out," Nowak reported.
"Are . . . are the lines to the Green Mountain contingent and Karas', er, headquarters functioning?"
"Not strung yet," Nowak said. "We're in radio contact with the Green Mountain troops.
They're asking us what's happening in town, since we've got a better view. They got a walkie-talkie distress signal, it seems." She spoke with the flat monotone of someone operating on autopilot.
More officers arrived and Jolla silenced the babble.
"Defensive stance," Jolla said. "Let's get the men to their positions for now. Where's Colonel-oh, at the party, of course."
Valentine dispatched Preville to pass the word to Rand, met Moytana's eyes, and jerked his chin toward Jolla. As everyone filed out to get their men to battle positions, some of which were only half-completed, they were joined by Bloom and Nowak.
"Your Wolves haven't reported enemy formations?" Valentine said.
"No, Major," Moytana said. "Only thing out of the ordinary they reported was a lot of activity at an old mine north of here. Military-style trucks and command cars. Locals said it had been shut down for years and just reopened and was being garrisoned. Said it was because the guerrillas had wrecked a couple of other more productive mines and they had to reopen.
Seng's got us keeping an eye on it, and a Cat is taking a closer look."
"You could hide a lot of men in a coal mine," Jolla said.
"Maybe the 'Green Mountain Boys' aren't really Green Mountain Boys," Bloom said.
"No, they're real enough," Nowak said. "Lambert and Seng were expecting them. We've had progress reports."
"Perhaps we should shift camp, Colonel," Valentine said. "Move closer to the Karas' bunch and the Green Mountain Boys. Right now we can't support each other."
"In the dark?" Jolla asked.
"Old Wolf trick, sir," Moytana said. "If somebody's marked out our positions for artillery, might be better if they wasted their shells on empty space."
"I took a look at their positions this morning," Valentine added. "They've got a good high hill to their backs."
"I think the enemy would be firing on us already if they had our position," Jolla said. "We don't even know what's happened in town yet."
"We may soon, Colonel," Nowak said, ear to the field phone again. "Pickets are reporting Private Dool is coming in. He ran all the way from town. Says there's been a massacre."
"No one else?"
"Just Dool, sir. He said they took away his rifle and his pants."
"His pants? Get him up here," Jolla said.
Valentine had the uncomfortable sensation that Dool's missing pants was just the first oddly heavy raindrop in a storm to come. He could almost feel trouble gathering, like the heavy air in front of piled up thunderclouds. Like an animal, he wanted to get away or underneath something.
Dool showed up soon enough, shoeless and footsore, a blanket wrapped around his waist.
Dool was a Guard regular who'd been wounded by a grenade in the cleanup action after the fight at Billy Goat Cut. He looked distraught. He still had his uniform shirt, though a blood splatter ran up the front to his shoulder like a rust-colored bandolier.
Jolla said, "Just give it to me, Dool. Don't worry about military form."
"Killed them all, sir. Colonel Seng and the rest, Roscoe next to me-they're all dead. They told me to tell you. Said that someone was to come into town to hear terms at dawn. They told me to tell you."
"They?"
"The fellers with the squarecl-off black beards."
"Like this," Moytana said, passing his hand just under his chin.
"Yessir, yes, Cap'n, that's just it."
"What's this, Moytana?" Jolla demanded.
Moytana cleared a frog from his throat. "It's the Moondagger Corps. Or elements of it.
They all wear beards like that." Moytana's face went as gray as the washed-out ropes in his hair.
Valentine knew the name. Oddly enough he'd heard it from Duvalier when they were discussing recent events in Kansas. They were some kind of special shock troops used to quell uprisings and had caused the 72 operation in Kansas to fall apart before it even got going.
"Never mind that," Jolla said. "Tell us what happened. Take your time."
Dool hitched the blanket around his legs a little tighter. "It was a fine dinner, sir. Officers from the Green Mountain troops were across the square from us, and the legworm guys were around the statue and on our left. Guerrilla troops too, only now I think they wasn't guerrillas but turncoats. Like Texas and Okie redhands, only worse.
"Then King Karas, he gets up and starts one of those fine speeches of his."
A siren started up, interrupting him.
"Engine noise reported overhead. One plane," Nowak reported from the field phones.
A second drop. How long until they start to fall, hard?
"Is the HQ dugout done yet?" Jolla asked.
"It's just a hole at the moment, sir," Nowak said.
"We'll adjourn there."
The hole was only half dug. There weren't any floorboards even. They squelched uncomfortably into the mud. It was deep enough so they could sit with heads below ground level. Nowak stayed at the headquarters tent.
Some squatted. Valentine's bad leg ached if he did that for more than a minute or two, so he settled uncomfortably into the mud.
"Go on with your story," Bloom said to Dool.
"Here, sir?"
"We've got little else to do," Jolla said.
Except get the camp moving. Forward, back just somewhere other than where the Kurians expected them to be. Valentine could hear the engine noise growing-a single prop, by the sound of it.
Observation planes. The herald of coming trouble.
Moytana was gnawing on the back of his hand again.
"Where did I leave off?" Dool asked.
"Karas's speech," Jolla said. "Do they really call him King Karas?"
"King of the Cumberland, some of those legworm fellers say, sir. It was a real good speech, I thought. Real good. He was just going on about mankind saying 'enough,' and there was this bright blue flash from the podium and he was just gone. Like lightning struck him, only there wasn't no bolt.
"Then the town square just sort of exploded, sir." Dool thought for a moment, as though trying to describe it. "Like a minefield wired to go off or something. Anyway, they blew up like mines. One went off right under the colonel's chair. I've always had decent reflexes, otherwise that grenade I tossed from the squad at the rail line would have been the end of me.
Gunfire then, a real sweeping fire, and they started cutting down everyone. Women with serving trays and beer mugs-everyone. Only now that I think back on it, the guerrilla leaders clustered around the podium, they weren't blown up or shot; they were sort of clear from it in this little cement area with benches and a fountain. I think they all jumped in that old fountain.
Wish we could have put a shell into it. The top half of the colonel was still sitting in his chair, tipped over, like. You know, like when you're at the beach and the kids half bury you in the sand, only it was real. I tried to drag Roscoe into some bushes but he was dead."
He paused for a moment. Valentine looked away while Dool wiped his eyes.
"All clear," Nowak called down into the hole.
Valentine noticed that the engine noise had died. They picked themselves up and returned to the headquarters tent.
Gamecock was there in full battle array, a big-handled bowie knife strapped to one thigh and a pistol on the other. Black paste was smeared on the exposed skin of his face and each bare arm. He had his hair gathered tightly in a food-service net.
"The whole Bear team's ready to go into that town, suh," Gamecock said. "I got twenty-two Bears already halfway up. We'll get the colonel back safe."
"Too late for that," Jolla replied. "I'm afraid he was killed in an ambush."
"Treachery, you mean," Bloom said.
"Then we'll pay them a visit to even the score," Gamecock said. "Just say the word."
Jolla tapped his hand against his thigh. "No, they're probably fortifying the town now."
"Sir, they told me to tell you what I saw," Dool said. "There wasn't anything like an army in town that I saw, just maybe a company of these bearded guys and the guerrilla turncoats."
Dool spoke up again. "The ones that surrendered, they took the prisoners and chopped their heads off. That big gold Grog was taking off heads with this thing like a branch trimmer. I thought I was gonna get chopped but it turned out I was the only one left from the brigade.
Colonel Gage drew his pistol and was shooting back and they gunned him down, and a sniper got Lieutenant Nawai while he was wrestling with a redhand for his gun."
"And they told you we'd hear their terms in the morning," Jolla said. "I think we should wait."
"Wait?" Valentine said, unable to believe his ears.
"Way I see it, the fight's started," Gamecock said. "I think we can guess what their terms will be."
"Javelin's almost four hundred miles from Southern Command," Jolla said. "The locals were supposed to support us, and now we've found that they're hostile. How long can this expedition survive without the support of the locals?"
Gamecock sat down in a folding chair, took out his big bowie knife, and started sharpening it on a tiny whetstone.
Frustrated, Valentine felt like he was playing a chess game where only his opponent was allowed to take three moves for his one. They'd be checkmated in short order.
"Longer than it'll last if we wait on what the Kurians have dreamed up," Valentine said.
"Javelin was named right, that's for sure," Jolla said. "Thrown over the front rank of shields at the enemy. If it hits, great. If it misses, the thrower doesn't expect to get it back. 'Sorry, General Lehman, we missed.'"
Bloom and Moytana exchanged glances. They both looked to Valentine. What were they expecting, a Fletcher Christian moment? Valentine wondered just what was said about him in Southern Command mess halls.
Valentine didn't want to think that Javelin's acting CO had his nerves shattered. Maybe he'd recover in the light of day.
Except by the light of day it would be too late.
"I'm willing to wait and hear what their terms are," Jolla said. "They may allow us to just quit and go home."
"Why would they do that?" Bloom said. "We're at the disadvantage now."
"Perhaps their real target was Karas. Kurian regulars are good enough when suppressing a revolt by farmers with pitchforks and rabbit guns. They're not as successful against trained troops. Except for in extraordinary circumstances, like Solon's takeover."
"All the more reason to pitch into them," Valentine said.
Jolla wiped his head again. "I'll go and see what they have to say. Bloom, this is a little unorthodox, but I'm promoting you to command of the Guards with a brevet for colonel.
Radio to Lehman's headquarters for confirmation and orders about how to proceed. Do you think we can get a signal through, Nowak?"
"So the radio silence order-"
"I think the Kurians know we're here now," Jolla said.
Nowak's face went red. Jolla shouldn't have snapped at her. Anyone might ask a dumb question under these circumstances.
"Thank you for your confidence, sir," Bloom said.
Nice of you, Cleo, changing the subject.
"You know the regiment and commanded them when Gage was away. If something happens to me, you're the best regular . . ."
Of what's left, Valentine silently added the unspoken words.
Valentine didn't know Southern Command military law well enough to know whether a colonel commanding could promote someone to colonel in the field, and frankly didn't care.
Nowak put down the handset.
"Colonel, I don't think you should go," she said, her face still emotionless. "Let me get their terms."
"They might pull one of their tricks," Jolla said.
"All the more reason for me to go," she said.
"Oh, Dool," Jolla said. "Why did they take your pants? I can see your shoes."
Dool tugged at an ear. "What's that, sir?"
"Your pants."
"I plain dumb forgot! They said to tell the brigade commander, 'Caught with your pants down.' I thought they were nuts. He was laying there dead in the town square. I guess they meant you to get it."
Jolla stood up. "Those were their words?"
"Yeah, caught with your pants down. I was to remind you."
"That mean something, sir?" Moytana said.
"It must just be a coincidence," Jolla said. "It's an old joke, goes back to my days at the war college. A dumb stunt I pulled."
"Has it come up recently?" Valentine asked.
"I . . . we were telling stories over cigars. Right after that fight at the railroad cut. Colonel Seng, myself, Gage was there, Karas, a few of the leaders from the legworm clans."
"I remember, sir," Nowak said. "The story about six-ass ambush. Five got away."
"And one didn't," Jolla said. "Forever branded as the one who couldn't get his pants up and tripped on his own belt."
"I wonder if there's a spy in our ranks?" Bloom asked.
"Dumb spy, to give himself away with a detail like that," Moytana said.
Or did the Kurians want everyone looking over their shoulder? Valentine wondered. They were better at sewing dissention than fighting.
The meeting broke up and Jolla ordered Valentine to check the defensive perimeter of the camp. Everyone was nervous, so he took the precaution of using the field phones to let the next post know he was on the way as he left each post.
He was checking the west side of camp when he saw group of men. It looked like some sort of struggle. One had lit a red signal flare and held it high so the troops knew not to fire.
Valentine trotted up to the mob. They were mostly regulars from the Guard regiment.
uStop, hold there!"
"Who says?" someone in the mob called.
"Shut it, you, it's Major Valentine," a corporal said. "Sir, we caught our spy."
The mob parted and two men dragged another forward, one holding each arm. He already had a noose around his neck. The man was folded like a clasp knife, coughing, clearly gut-punched-or kicked.
They raised his face, using his scant hair as a handle. It was Brother Mark.
"He was dressed all in black. Sneaking off."
"He always dresses in black," Valentine said. "Let him go; give him some air."
"He's the spy for sure," someone called, and the group growled approval.
Valentine wondered how word of "a spy" in camp had spread so quickly. Soldiers had their own communications grapevines, especially for bad news.
"God help me," Brother Mark gasped.
"Let's hope so," Valentine said. "Who arrested him?"
At the word "arrest" the mob stiffened a little. Valentine had used it intentionally, hoping that a whiff of juridical procedure would bring the men back to their senses.
Brother Mark groaned and sucked air.
"I guess it was me, Major. Corporal Timothy Kemper, Bravo Company, first battalion.
Pickets under my command caught him sneaking out of camp."
The man in question came to his knees, grabbed Valentine by the sleeve.
"The pickets didn't 'catch' me," Brother Mark almost wept. "I hailed them and requested a guide to get me to Karas' encampment. For God's sake, tell him the facts, Corporal."
Valentine wondered if crying on bended knee got you off the hook in the Kurian Zone.
Tears wetting his uniform coat cuff just left him feeling embarrassed for both of them.
"Stop that," Valentine said, backing away. "Karas is dead."
"I'd heard there was some kind of treachery in town. I thought I should see to our allies.
I'm sure they're as frightened as we are."
The men growled at that again. For a man of the cloth and a diplomat, Brother Mark wasn't very good at communicating with ordinary soldiers.
"Who told you to do that?" Valentine asked.
"I thought it was my duty," he said, reclaiming some of his spaniel-eyed dignity.
"Your duty?" Valentine said, almost amused.
"My higher calling to unite-"
"Save it. You should have checked with someone and had orders issued."
"I've never had to ask permission to come and go, son." With the noose now loose around his neck, he rose to his feet, dusting off the plain black moleskin.
"Major," Valentine reminded him.
"I'm not sure where I fit in to your hierarchy."
"Under the circumstances it would have been wiser to get permission and an escort.
Corporal, return to your pickets." Valentine picked out two men who made the mistake of standing a little apart from the others. "You two, come with me as an escort. I'll take our churchman to headquarters and see what he has to say. Consider yourself confined to camp for now, Brother."
"I must be allowed to visit the other camps. We must hang together, or as Franklin said, we shall all surely hang separately."
Valentine saw no point in engaging the churchman in a debate. They were already wasting time. Wasting words would just add insult to injury.
He took him up to the headquarters tent. Jolla had pushed two tables together and spread out a map of western Kentucky. He had the mission book, a set of standing orders that covered several contingencies, including loss of the commander and abandonment by the legworm clans.
Nowak was gone. Another officer was handling the communications desk-if a folding-leg table covered by a tangle of wires connecting assorted rugged electronics boxes could be called a desk-but if anything, headquarters was busier than in the first shock of the alert.
Complaints and problems were coming in from all points of the compass. It was just as well that they weren't under attack, Valentine thought. The artillery spotters couldn't communicate with the mortar pits, two companies were trying to occupy the same defilade, leaving a whole eighth of the perimeter unguarded . . .
Valentine ignored the assorted kerfuffles and explained what he'd seen, and stopped. He let Brother Mark do the rest of the talking. Jolla apologized for the men being on edge.
"But you must give me orders to contact our allies, it seems," Brother Mark said.
Jolla scrawled something on his order pad and signed it.
"Do you think it's wise to just let him wander around, under the circumstances?" Valentine asked.
"I wouldn't be wandering," Brother Mark said.
"You're right, Valentine, and you just named your own poison. Go with him. They tell me the Reaper hasn't been built that can sneak up on you."
"Yes, sir," Valentine said, fighting a battle with his face.
"Besides, someone in uniform should be representing Javelin. Tell them that I've informed Southern Command of the situation and I'm waiting for orders. Until then I'm free to act as I see fit."
That'll reassure a bunch of nervous Kentucky wormriders.
Valentine had heard rumors as a junior officer that the Kurians could befuddle key men through some sort of mental evil third eye, but had never attributed to mysticism what could be explained by stupidity. Jolla's sudden plunge into routine and procedure, when circumstances called for anything but, made him reconsider his old attitudes.
"You're a sharp instrument of good in His hands, my son," Brother Mark said. "Thank you for getting the noose off me. Those poor anxious men were rather letting their passions run wild on them."
Valentine decided he wanted the far blunter instrument of Bee along, just in case, so he delayed Brother Mark for five more minutes. He took Ediyak as well. Beauty sometimes calmed better than brawn. He grabbed some legworm jerkey and peanuts and took an extra canteen. If the real fireworks began, they might be forced to flee in the wrong direction.
As they set out, Brother Mark graced them with only a single aphorism: "Let's be about God's work this night of fear and doubt." Then he stalked off toward the legworm campsites, taking long, measured strides, for all the world like a hero in one of DeMille's old biblical videos they liked to show on washed-out old 1080 screens in church basements on community night.
Valentine almost liked him. He couldn't say whether the renegade churchman was crazy, a true believer, or simply the kind of man who always stepped forward when necessity called.
He took care moving-God knows what might be prowling in the dark-with first Bee scouting while he made sure nothing was following him, and then swapping with the Grog.
The legworm clans didn't even have anything that could be called a camp. They'd gathered their legworms together into five big clumps, feeding them branches cut and dragged from the woods, with a few more grazing at the borders of their camps. Their sentries and picket positions were two-man pairs who lay behind clumps and lines of leg-worm droppings, the fresh deposits notched with little sandbags the size of small pistols supporting deer rifles.
Behind the spotter/sniper positions more men stood ready to mount their legworms.
Valentine had seen the mobile breastworks that legworms provided in action before. The riders planted hooks and straps in the fleshy, nerveless sides of their mounts and hung off the living walls, employing their guns against an opponent, using tactics that com-bined First World War trench warfare with wooden ship actions from Nelson's day.
The legworm clans were quick to blame Southern Command for not properly securing the town. Valentine conceded the point. The Wolves had checked it out, and then the Guards conducted a more thorough search, but whatever soldiers had been posted at key buildings and crossroads were missing along with the rest of the celebrants.
"I told Spex Karas this whole affair would go wrong," the dispatcher of the Coonskins said.
He glared at Valentine through his one good eye. The other was a milky wreck. "The Free Territories egg us into fighting with the Kurians. We're for it now. For it deep."
"It's not this young man's fault," Brother Mark said.
Valentine thought of correcting him. He'd urged Southern Command to explore an alliance with some of the legworm clans and support the guerrillas in the Alleghenies.
"Careful, Coonskin," a low female voice said. "He's Bulletproof. Might just challenge you to a duel."
Tikka forced her way to the front of the throng. "Welcome back, Reiner. My life gets interesting whenever you show up."
"Hello, Tikka. Where's Zak?"
Valentine heard startled breaths. She replied in a monotone, "He was at the party."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Valentine said.
She thanked him quietly, looked around at the assembly. "I'm able to speak in my brother's place, with my dispatcher's authority. The Bulletproof won't quit. Won't throw down their guns. Won't run."
"I stand for the Alliance too," another called. Cheers broke out.
But they sounded half-hearted.
By the pinkening dawn, they were at the camp of the Green Mountain Boys and Valentine was growing tired. The New England troops took the precaution of blindfolding the party before letting them into camp. Bee didn't appreciate being blindfolded, so Ediyak offered to wait with her outside the lines.
The Green Mountain Boys still had their senior officer, General Constance, who'd begged off the party because of a broken ankle. He looked like Santa Claus without the beard, sitting with his leg extended.
"Thought we had a bit too much of an easy time getting here," Constance said. "Thing is, if a trap's been sprung, where are the jaws?"
"Have you decided on a course of action?"
The cheery, red-cheeked face frowned. "If I had, I'd be a fool to tell you now, wouldn't I?"
"I don't blame you for not trusting us," Valentine said. "We're all wondering what's going to go wrong next."
"They've got a twist on us, that's for damn sure," Constance said. "Masterful, suckering us out like this. Masterful. They've set us up. Now I'm wondering how they're going to knock us down."
With that unsettling thought, Brother Mark got a promise from Constance not to act without first consulting Javelin's headquarters.
Under blindfold again, they were led back to the pickets. But Valentine knew the sound of a camp being packed up when he heard it.
Full daylight washed them as they returned to camp. Valentine looked around at the hills and mountains of West Virginia, black in the morning glare. The only sounds of fighting were from birds, bat-tling and defending in contests of song and chirp as squirrel-tail grass waved in the wind. How long before the shells started falling?
The Kurians usually came off the worse in a stand-up fight. But this was above and beyond, even for their standard of deviousness.
He checked Brother Mark back in, gave Nowak's adjutant a report of his estimation of the situation in the Kentucky and New England camps, and returned to his company. After passing along what little news he had, he entered his tent and slept. Bee sat upright at the foot of his bed facing the tenthole, snoring.
Valentine's first captain in the Wolves, LeHavre, once told him a story of a Kurian trick, where they emptied a town and filled it up again with Quisling specialists who pretended to be ordinary civilians. The Kurians had done something similar here, on a much larger scale, involving even the partisans and the underground. Or perhaps used agents posing as them.
Valentine dreamed that he was in that town, walking down the center of the main street, frozen statues on sidewalks and in doorways and shopwindows watching him, their heads slowly turning, turning past the point their necks would snap, turning full around like turrets.
"What brings you here, missionary" one of the reversed heads asked.
Valentine woke to find Ediyak shaking his shoulder. "Some kind of emissary from the Kurians, sir. Thought you might like to see it."
"Is Nowak back?"
"I don't know, sir."
His platoon just coming off guard detail was skipping a chance for both breakfast and sleep to catch a glimpse of the Kurians' mouthpiece.
When Valentine got a look at him, all he could think was that D.C. Marvels had an evil twin. The mouthpiece rode in a jointed-arm contraption on the back of a Lincoln green double-axle flatbed wrecker, modified for high ground clearance. Loudspeakers like Mickey Mouse ears projected from either side of the truck cab, and a huge silver serving cover, big enough to keep a turkey warm, rested over the hood ornament.
What really caught the eye was the contraption mounted on the flatbed. Valentine thought it looked a little like a stick-insect version of a backhoe, suspending a leather wing chair where the toothy shovel should be. Gearing and compressors appropriate for a carnival ride muttered and hissed at the base.
Valentine marked an insignia on the truck, a crescent moon with a dagger thrust through it, rather reminiscent of the old hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union.
"That's an old camera crane, I think," Rand said, wiping his glasses and resettling them on his nose. "Big one."
The mouthpiece himself wore a plain broadcloth suit over a white shirt and a red bow tie, though the suit had apparently been tailored to fit a pair of football shoulder pads beneath. He wore a red-trimmed white sash covered in neatly arranged brass and silver buttons, with a few dazzling diamond studs here and there. Jewels glued into the skin sparkled at the outer edge of each almond-shaped eye. Close-cropped curly hair had been dyed white, fading down his sideburns to two points at either side of a sharply trimmed beard.
He flicked a whiter-that-white lace hankerchief idly back and forth, his hand moving in the dutiful measured gestures of a royal wave. With his right he worked the crane and the chair, rising and dipping first to one side of the flatbed, and then sweeping around the front to the other side.
"I am the Last Chance," the mouthpiece said. Valentine noticed a tiny wire descending from a loop around his ear to the side of his mouth. It must have been a microphone of some kind, because the mouthpiece's words boomed from the speakers, startling the assembled soldiers. "For credentials I present only the mark of my obedience and the tally of my offspring."
He lifted his beard. A sliver bar, widened and rounded at each end in the manner of a Q-tip, pierced the skin at the front of his neck just above his Adam's apple. Then he made a sweeping gesture with brass-ringed fingers at the sash.
"The holy balance represents the duality of existence. Life and death. Good and evil. Order and chaos. Mercy and cruelty. Wisdom is knowing when to apply each and in what measure and Grace how to accept each in submission to the will of the gods, who see horizons beyond our the vision of human eyes."
He gave his speech in the measured, rehearsed manner of a catechism. Valentine wondered how long it had been since the mouthpiece had thought about those words.
Valentine found Moytana standing next to him. "Silver buttons are children who entered Kur's service; gold are children who had children of their own who took up the dagger. The cubic zirconium means someone who died in the Moondaggers."
"Lot of kids.'
"Tell you about it later," Moytana said.
"He doesn't look old enough to have brought up that many soldiers."
"They start fighting at thirteen or fourteen, whenever the balls drop," Moytana said as the mouthpiece blatted something about the kindness of the gods giving them a last chance.
"Who in this assembly of the disobedient is in authority to speak to me?"
He spoke in a stern but kind tone through the speakers, with a hint of suppressed anger, making Valentine feel like a third grader caught putting a frog in the teacher's pencil drawer.
"That would be me," Colonel Jolla said, stepping forward.
"I wonder. You have the face of one who has lost a bet. You look like-what is the phrase you swamp-trotting crackers use?-you look like the 'bottom of the barrel.' And not a good barrel at that."
"Where's Captain Nowak? Why hasn't she returned with your terms:" Jolla asked.
As the mouthpiece dipped, Valentine noticed a golden-handled curved blade with an ivory sheath resting in his lap.
"Oh, but she has."
He worked the joystick and swept his chair around the front of the truck, removing the silver serving cover. Nowak's head was spiked, literally on a platter, her insignia, sidearm, personal effects, and identification arranged around her head like a garnish.
"She chose not to let her womb be a nursery of my greatness. As in her arrogance she took the counsel of her head rather than that of her body's blessed womanly nature, we took the liberty of ridding her of its burden."
He swung his chair around, turned the winged leather. Valentine saw gold leaf painted on the exposed wood at the front and tiny Moondagger symbols painted precisely on the nailhead trim. The mouthpiece fixed his eye on Ediyak.
"I trust others will not be so foolish."
"You killed a soldier under a flag of truce?" Jolla said.
The mouthpiece laughed. "What new folly must I expect from men who would have women do their fighting? I made her an honorable proposal of motherhood. Let that be a lesson to you. Do not send women to speak in a man's place again. Besides, she is not dead, just free of the body whose duty she refused in the first place. Tell them, sexless one."
Valentine saw him press a button next to his joystick. Nowak's eyes opened.
"I live," Nowak's head said. "If you want to call it that." Valentine noticed her voice came through the speakers. Clearly Nowak's, though the words sounded forced.
Some of the soldiers backed away. The more ghoulish craned their necks to get a better view.
Nowak's eyes rolled this way and that. "Well, hello, Jolly. You look intact this morning."
Valentine searched for the mechanics of the trickery. You needed lungs, a windpipe, to speak. A head couldn't just talk. This was some bit illusion by a Kurian or one of their agents.
He just wished real-looking blood wasn't slipping out of the corner of Nowak's mouth as she spoke.
"Tell them our terms," the mouthpiece said. "You must remember. I whispered them to you often enough on the ride up as you rode in my lap. First, obedience-"
The eyes in the severed head blinked. "First, obedience to the order to lay down your arms and a solemn pledge to never resist the gods again," Nowak said. "Second, a selection of hostages, one taking the place often in assurance of future good conduct. Third, a return to the squalor of our bandit dens on the other side of the Mississippi, taking only from the countryside such as needed to sustain the retreat."
Her voice broke. "This is your only alternative to horrors and torments everlasting. The grave that gives no rest is my fate, for my willfulness," Nowak's head said, bloody tears running from the corners of her eyes.
The Kurian Order always provided plenty of evidence for your eyes. After a lifetime spent trusting your senses . . .
"You men may save your families by giving up your arms." A faint, low drumming carried up from the town. Must be some massive drums must be to make that deep a noise. "Women, shield your children from Kur's wrath by offering up your bodies to our commanders."
Valentine wondered at that. Was the mouthpiece so used to giving his last-chance speech that he failed to notice he was in a camp full of soldiers?
"Listen to him!" Nowak shrieked.
"You've got a long drive ahead of you, prance, if you want my boy," Cleo Bloom called from the back of the crowd. "He's six hundred miles away."
The chair rose and spun toward the sound. The mouthpiece fixed her with a baleful eye.
"No matter. We'll simply take one from a town between here and Kantuck. We will let the mother know the willfulness, the arrogance, the insolence that demanded his sacrifice."
"Twisting tongue of the evil one, begone!" a commanding voice said in a timbre that matched the amplified speakers. Every head turned, and Brother Mark stepped forward.
Brother Mark stared at the head on the front of the hood and Nowak's features fell still and dead, the eyes dry and empty.
The chair descended again, sweeping forward just a little. The men next to Brother Mark retreated to avoid being knocked over. The two stared at each other, the mouthpiece's hand on the hilt of his dagger. Valentine sidestepped to get nearer to Brother Mark.
"Don't let this one fill your ears with pieties," the mouthpiece said. "He's expecting you to die for a cause. Futility shaped and polished to a brightness that blinds you to the waste.
Honor. Duty. Country. How many millions in the old days marched to their doom with such platitudes in their ears? Wasted potential. It is for each man to add value to his life. Don't let wastrels spend the currency of your days."
The crane elevated him to its maximum extension.
"Our divine Prophet's Moondagger is still sheathed," the mouthpiece boomed through the speakers. The drums in town sounded in time to his pauses. "Do not tempt him to draw it, for it cannot be put away again until every throat in this camp is cut."
"We're volunteers," Valentine said. "We've all seen how lives are counted when Kur is the banker."
The crane lowered the mouthpiece.
Valentine stood, arms dangling, relaxed. He opened and closed his right fist, warming his fingers.
"Your face will be remembered. You'll regret those words, over and over and over again, tormented in the living hells."
"Can I borrow that?" Valentine asked. He whipped out his hand, raked the mouthpiece under the chin, came away with the silver pin-and a good deal of bushy black beard.
"Outrage!" the mouthpiece sputtered, eyes wide with shock. Blood dripped onto his white shirt.
Valentine, keeping clear of the extended crane arm, cleaned his ears with the silver pin and tossed it back into the Last Chance's lap, where it clattered against the curved dagger.
"Thanks," Valentine said.
"You'll writhe on a bridge of hooks. You'll roast, slowly, with skin coated in oils of-"
"Is that part of the living hells tour, or do I have to pay extra?" Valentine said. He called over the shoulder at the brigade: "That's how it always is, right? They hook you in with the price of the package tour, but all the worthwhile sights are extra."
The soldiers laughed.
"Here's my moon. Where's your dagger?" someone shouted from the back of the mob.
Because of the crowd, Valentine couldn't see what was on display.
"You have until dusk to decide," the mouthpiece said, pulling his chair back toward the truck. The drumming started again.
The mouthpiece's flatbed rumbled to life. It backed up, turned, and rocked down toward the picket line. Some stealthy Southern Command hooligans had hung a sheet off the back of the flatbed, with ASS BANDIT-PUCKER UP! written on it in big block capitals.
The rest of the assembly laughed the Last Chance out of their camp.
Had this Last Chance ever ridden off to the sound of raucous laughter? Valentine doubted it.
Outside of the color guards and bands, no officer had ever quite succeeded in getting any two Southern Command soldiers to look alike in dress and hair, even for formal parades. They etched names of sweethearts in their rifles, sewed beads and hung tufted fishing lures in the caps, dipped points of their pigtails in tar, and stuck knives and tools in distinctly non-regulation snakeskin sheaths. But David Valentine had never been more grateful their mulish contrariness.