by EE Knight
Duvalier had faith that the Lifeweavers were off starting another freehold and would return at the first opportunity. She believed in their return like some Christians expected the Second Coming to sweep away the Kurian Order.
“If you’re a human who wants to get up Iowa way, you need to know the Scrubmen.”
“Scrubmen?” Valentine asked.
“They’re mostly kids of slaves from the Groglands. A Grog chief can’t keep or sell a slave his clan hasn’t captured, and most of ’em know better than to bury the newborn like what happens to deformed little baby Groggies. Poor things. If the child’s really lucky he gets turned over to the missionaries in Saint Louis, otherwise once he’s weaned he gets set loose. Groggies don’t know that just because you’re off the teat you can’t take care of yourself the way a little Grog can, naturally rooting around and hunting.”
“I’ve never run across them. I’ve been across northern Iowa several times.”
“You probably stayed close to the river,” Scheier said.
“Yes.”
“What do you think of Brostoff?”
Scheier and Jarvis exchanged a look.
“Durndel said you knew him back a whiles,” Scheier said. “You tell us if he’s changed.”
“More whiskey lines,” Valentine said.
“We can’t figure it,” Scheier said. “Last year, they had a decent C.O. Captain Finner. He knew Missouri like the back of his hand; been from Iowa to the Ozarks more times than I’ve been issued shoes. His men were ragged and patched, sure, what Wolf Unit in the bush doesn’t look that way?”
“Good man,” Jarvis echoed. “Made a speciality out of blowing the crap out of the River Patrol, only he used Grog guns for it so they’d hit back at the wrong target. One time he made it look like the Red Scalps Clan did it—scalped a boat captain with red hair—and started a big feud between the River Patrol and Red Scalps.”
“Then one of Martinez’s inspector generals comes in, and suddenly no more Finner. Sent back to supervise a depot full of blankets and winter socks.”
“I’m no fan of General Martinez,” Valentine said. “The way he runs things, I’m not sure the Kurians would do much different if they were giving the orders instead of him.” He was breaking military protocol fifty ways from Mountain Home, but one more charge on his long list of sins wouldn’t make a difference now.
With the cautious ice broken, Scheier continued.
“I don’t know about Martinez. Sure, he’s made improvements. Lots more supply getting to us now. Mail’s better. But then his staff goes and puts a guy like Brostoff in charge of the Missouri Wolves. Force conservation. Avoid areas of possible conflict. Observe and report, under no circumstances engage. Don’t make sense.”
“All they do is eat, clean their guns, and then wait to rotate back to the home areas,” Jarvis said. “What kind of formula is that for winning anything?”
“Those poor Grogs in Omaha kept expecting us. It was building, too. Bear Teams. Jarvis and I had set up a chain of supply caches with some of the Golden—the Bears and a bunch of Wolf heavy weapons trainers teams backed up with regulars and special forces were going to go hit Iowa on the supply lines for their siege. Soon as Martinez came in, that whole op got canceled on us.”
Ahn-Kha planted his feet wide and set his pylonlike arms so he leaned in over the Cats.
“Tell me the truth. My people were promised warriors in a fight, and they did not even attempt to come?”
Scheier and Jarvis, both a little wide-eyed with Ahn-Kha looming over them, shrank into each other.
“No,” Scheier said. “Or rather, yes. What I’m saying: the whole thing got scrubbed as soon as Martinez got in with all that talk about a ‘respite’ at the last election.”
“That’s what happened all right,” Jarvis said. “No wormshit.”
“Martinez don’t think too much of Grogs. Said whole lot of ’em wasn’t worth ‘one son of Texas’—I think that’s how he said it. It was in a speech he gave at the war college. Got reprinted and distributed, like all his speeches.”
“He loves giving speeches and sending bulletins,” Jarvis said. “Keeps us in writing paper and asswipes every month.”
“They all begin ‘Soldiers!’ With the exclamation point, like the soldiers are all excited.”
“Now he’s made an enemy of one,” Valentine said.
“My David, you will do me the honor of hearing this oath.” Ahn-Kha drew his utility knife, and taking great handfuls of his Golden Mane, began to trim it down to stubble, with a good deal of nicks and cuts in the process.
He threw his head back and made a high wailing call as he cut his hair.
“For your benefit, my David, I will translate. ‘Hear me, souls of the fathers in Paradise. Before I join you, I will take my fallen brother’s revenge from General Martinez.’ ”
“I’ve never wanted to do a Grog before, but I’d consider it with that one,” Scheier whispered to Jarvis.
“Ouch,” Jarvis said. “That’s not a team change, that’s a different league.”
“You’ll have to wait in line behind me, old horse,” Valentine said, after a moment to let Ahn-Kha collect himself.
“You take my words lightly?” Ahn-Kha growled.
Valentine felt a stab. He’d never had so much as a harsh word from the gentle giant. Ahn-Kha laughed at misfortune and bore hunger and discomfort with the same equanimity as he accepted sirloins and featherbeds.
“I’m sorry, my friend. If we survive this, I’ll say good-bye to Colonel Lambert and follow you right to Martinez’s headquarters, if that’s what you want to do. What we have to do now is find your people and see if there’s anything that can be done to help them.”
Ahn-Kha tweaked both of Valentine’s ears and flicked his own forward. “I forget, sometimes, my David, that you are not my people. You are only human, as you humans most accurately say.”
Valentine wondered if he was blushing. He’d seen mother Grogs take their offspring’s ears in this manner to chide them. He tweaked Ahn-Kha’s snout.
“Did we just see a moment, here?” Jarvis said.
“Kiss already!” Scheier laughed.
Valentine had been among his squared-away-and-zipped-tight KZ refugees too long. He’d forgotten how free and easy the Southern Command’s men and women were, especially when out cutting bush and chewing jerky.
“My friend is right,” Ahn-Kha said. “I must see to my people before indulging in matters of old wrongs, no matter how grievous. Let us not waste time in getting me to them.”
“To do that, you’re going to have to go into the Gray Baron’s stronghold. That’s where he’s got them now. They’re digging holes and setting up building frames.”
“We keep tabs on him,” Jarvis said. “The Gray Baron’s forces are the toughest between here and the Rio Grande. They get plenty of practice against the Missouri Grogs, and us, now and then. He’s really dangerous.”
“Wish we could still say the same about Southern Command,” Valentine said.
They left the rolling hills of Southern Missouri behind when they crossed the Missouri west of Columbia and cut into prairie country.
Valentine had been nervous about the crossing, but the old interstate bridge was still intact. Scheier floated an old boat chair across and explored the other side in the predawn gloom and pronounced it safe. She’d scared off a couple of Grogs by stomping around their camp, breaking twigs and making hissing noises through her teeth.
The river, at least here along the small length Valentine had seen, would be difficult to navigate. While the Mississippi still had a few channel markers in difficult areas and the odd lock and dam working, the Missouri had run totally wild. Unless they could find enough bass boats to float Ahn-Kha’s people to Saint Louis, travel by river would be impossible.
The open prairie presented its own challenges. Water wasn’t difficult thanks to the spring—rains had filled every brook and pond.
The land, dot
ted with the blues, whites, and yellows of the tiny spring blossoms, harbored its own host of dangers. To those who haven’t experienced it, prairie country is flat with horizon-spanning views.
But in this stretch of Missouri, prairie grasses and brush grow head height or higher between the deep-rooted oaks, widely spaced in their competition for midsummer water. There are many paths and game trails, but there’s every chance of meeting a hunting—or worse, raiding—party of Grogs.
Valentine knew enough about legworms now to prefer running into them. Their snap-crackle-popping sounds of feeding and movement carried far across flat country. Grogs on legworms could be avoided, provided care was taken.
So, in a sweaty single file, with Duvalier at the front of the column and Ahn-Kha at the rear—where he could keep an eye on the flagging Victoria Pellwell and her ratbits—they entered prairie country under brushstroke clouds.
Valentine would stop at times and observe the column as they trudged past, making up some excuse to check in with Ahn-Kha. Duvalier, steady as always and traveling light with her loose-limbed stride, a teenager’s purposeless shamble that looked busy without drawing attention to itself. Bee followed in her usual spot alternately trailing or leading Valentine like a hunting dog. She wore her sawed-off shotguns in hip holsters, and had a modified Kalashnikov across her chest and a big-game rifle with an extra-long stock in her hand. She’d already brought down one deer yesterday with a single, well-placed shot through the ears and was eager for another. They wouldn’t go short of meat if she had anything to say about it. Valentine gave her an encouraging lift of the chin. Bee liked being acknowledged.
Her nostrils flared and the mountain of she-Grog muscle moved on.
Then came Frat and his Wolves in their traditional leathers, camouflage ponchos thrown over their shoulders like capes. Frat seemed at ease in the prairie country, with eyes up and moving. The Wolves, burdened with carbines and communication gear and supplies, bore their loads with the familiar patience of oxen.
Chieftain followed them, wearing the Bear nonuniform of a mix of Reaper robe, legworm leather, Southern Command camo, and an old felt hat with a single nostalgic eagle feather stuck into it. Duvalier had cracked a joke that he’d molted over the winter, but the fact of the matter was he was still mourning Silvertip. He had his usual close-in weapons, twin forged-steel tomahawks. He’d add some support fire to the group with an old-fashioned 40mm grenade launcher that could either fire grenades or a sort of enormous shotgun cartridge of razor-edged fléchettes that one of Fort Seng’s gunsmiths customized. Rippers, he called them.
Pellwell followed with her ratbits. She carried one, the other two scampered, sniffing at the unique scent of Chieftain (he weatherproofed his uniform with a gummy concoction based on Reaper blood, or so he claimed).
Pellwell was his big worry on the march, though she’d carried her own weight so far. Field researcher or no, she wasn’t used to the tired, stinky, hungry life of a soldier in the field. Dealing with the dirt and uncomfortable overnights took a mental toll on some, and Valentine looked for signs of mental stress in Pellwell. But apart from her usual clumsiness—she tended to stumble but not fall—she appeared to be bearing up. Valentine decided he’d have his next meal with her and chat for a while.
And last came Ahn-Kha, serene as a drifting cloud. He carried a support machine gun usually found mounted on a vehicle, a squat little death dealer fed by a belt-in-a-box. It was known as a “Heater” in Southern Command. A revolver big enough to bring down a grizzly hung under one vast arm, and he slung a sharpened shovel that came in handy for scratching out a toilet pit and a long hunting knife known as an Arkansas toothpick.
“What’s with the shovel?” Valentine had asked him.
“A memory of my time in the coal mines,” Ahn-Kha replied. “When we had no other weapon, we fought with our shovels.”
Valentine remembered some of the grisly scenes described in Ahn-Kha’s collection of diaries and shuddered.
The second day out from the Missouri crossing, Scheier returned out of breath at lunch.
“Jarvis and I saw signs of Scrubmen, a large party.”
“Are they a threat?” Valentine asked.
“Can’t say. We found a recent camp. Lots of them, forty or more.”
“What would you do if it was only you and Jarvis?” Valentine asked.
“Get a feel for their trail. Moving fast or slow, and with what. If they’re hunting, we’d find a place to hide and be ready to backtrack if they approached. They’re tricky on the move when hunting, they’ll backtrack, parallel themselves, send scouts back along their trail . . . Otherwise just observe.”
Valentine considered the delay in backing off and moving north along another trail.
“Is there any good news?” he asked.
“There probably aren’t Grogs around.”
“Where’s Jarvis?”
“Keeping an eye on the camp and the trail they left, to see if they reverse course.”
“Let’s try to swing round in their wake,” Valentine decided.
“They’re nothing to mess with, sir,” Scheier said. “Don’t let the spears and arrowheads fool you.”
After it was all over, Jarvis tried to make Valentine feel better by telling him that the Scrubmen had probably spotted their party the day before and overnight, and left the cold camp in their path to gauge their reaction. The only way they might have frightened them off was to take off headlong along the trail like a pack of wolves. The Scrubmen might have assumed they were an advance party for a larger force that way and avoided contact.
As it was, Valentine’s decision to dodge them solidified whatever ideas the Scrubman chief had been making.
They executed the ambush admirably, rising out of an open field at the shrill imitated cry of a Cooper’s hawk as the file passed through a horseshoe-shaped bowl in the land.
A hedge of spears and drawn slingshots appeared all around. Valentine heard the creaking sound of bows being drawn from the brush. Valentine didn’t count spear points, his brain guessed thirty and left it at that. They were well-made, simple weapons, their brutal effect proven since men were slaying each other with jawbones.
Valentine edged closer to Pellwell. “When the fighting starts,” he said out of the side of his mouth, “drop. Get behind one of the Wolves and don’t get up unless you see the rest of us running.”
The Scrubmen dripped with mud and willow tresses. Valentine had seen some atavistic figures before, but the Scrubmen were like something out of early human history. They wore bits and bobs of Grog jewelry—probably tokens of friendship with certain tribes— shell casing necklaces, dog tails, and in one potbellied oldster’s case, an old Kevlar army helmet.
It was their eyes that interested Valentine. Tough, hungry eyes, looking this way and that, these men were of, by, and for their pack. All it would take would be a nose twitch for spears and arrows to start flying.
“Yours guns, nows,” the helmeted leader said.
“Gets good prices, yesses? Sweets-likkers-juices!”
Valentine called out: “Everybody, keep calm now.”
“Guns! Down!”
Ahn-Kha dropped his machine gun directly in front of his long-toed feet, raised his arms in surrender. The Scrubmen had picked the wrong day to point a weapon at Ahn-Kha. The Golden One didn’t let out a battle roar, he simply brought both mighty fists down on the spears in front of him. Wood shattered, knife tips dug into dirt. With his fists planted, he swung out with both long-toed feet and kicked the two Scrubmen facing him toward Iowa.
In later years it was said that they fell just short of Burlington.
Valentine drew his legworm pick and borrowed parang. He jumped back from the extended spears, heard a pellet buzz by. His enemies, off-balance and overextended in their lunge, turned it into a charge.
Valentine heard motion behind and dropped to the ground, rolling. Two ranks of spears clattered against each other. Valentine heard the snick of a bl
ade sinking home as the Scrubmen met.
He lashed out at an ankle with his parang, pinned a foot to the turf with his pick, let it lie and rose, lifting and twisting a spear.
“Looksee!” “Watch hims!”
A four-armed blur. The Brushmen had never fought Cats before.
He saw a Scrubman go down, weighted by ratbits biting at the tender flesh behind his knee and on the inner thigh. The scratching, pulling furies came away with tendon and other terrible trophies clamped between paired front incisors.
Valentine had read somewhere or other that, given time, rats could gnaw through concrete and some thinner types of conduit. These were a good deal larger and had obviously learned exactly where a man was vulnerable.
The Scrubmen valued survival rather than honor. They took to the brush with alacrity, sending pellets whizzing overhead to cover their retreat.
What the Wolves did with the wounded, Valentine didn’t know and didn’t want to know. The cries were brief, and for that he was thankful.
Frat’s head appeared at the top of the crest of the horseshoe.
“Major, looks like they left a few things behind,” Frat called.
Valentine trotted up to Frat’s position with Ahn-Kha parting prairie grasses like a living snowplow.
Frat led him to a four-foot-deep ripple in the earth, closed over by oak and grasses into a shady tunnel. A line of people, anchored by a Gray One at each end, were linked by neck collars and six-foot wooden poles.
Valentine had rarely seen such ghastly restraints. The leather was filthy and rotted, with flies buzzing around dried blood caked and recaked at the edges.
“Free those people.”
They looked thin and bruised. Valentine guessed the Scrubmen had kept their captives moving with lashes from thin tree limbs and yanks on the collar chain.
“Can you get anything from the Grogs?” Valentine asked.
Ahn-Kha spoke to the pair.
“They say they’re on their way north,” Ahn-Kha translated. “Those two, they’re deserters from the Two-Mouth’s army.”