Appalachian Overthrow
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LEGWORMS—Long centipede-like creatures introduced to Earth in 2022 that reach lengths of more than forty feet and eight feet of height or more. They are a useful but stupid creature, able to bear heavy loads, but they can only be urged to move at a pace above a walk by a skilled rider and constant prodding. The chewy flesh from around each one’s hundred clawlike legs is high in protein and edible, barely, and the skin from their eggs makes a tough, breathable form of leather that is a valuable trade good if harvested before the newly hatched legworms consume it. They lay eggs in the fall and become sluggish and torpid in the winter when they gather together en masse to shelter their eggs.
LIFESIGN—An invisible signature given off by all living organisms, in proportion to their vital aura. Reapers can detect it, especially at night, and are able to home in on humans from miles away. It is possible for a human to train herself to reduce lifesign through mental exercises or meditation, and it is possible to camouflage lifesign by hiding in densely wooded areas or among large groups of livestock. Earth and metals do tend to block it. There are some who maintain that a sufficient quantity of simple aluminum foil can conceal lifesign, especially if one keeps one’s head properly wrapped, but empirical evidence is lacking, since individuals who try to sneak past Reapers relying on layers of foil rarely return.
LOGISTICS COMMANDOS—A branch of Southern Command that concerns itself with acquiring difficult-to-obtain supplies, mostly medicines and technology. It does this by purchase, trade, and outright theft. It is common for veteran Hunters to go into the Logistics Commandos as a form of retirement from fighting.
MISKATONIC (THE)—A fellowship of scholars devoted to studying the Kurian Order and categorizing Grogs. While the Miskatonic contains its share of academics, there are also “field” people who accompany Southern Command’s forces to act as advisers and record evidence. Researchers at the Miskatonic have developed more effective weapons for killing Reapers, mostly thanks to the discovery of Quickwood and its derivatives.
MOONDAGGERS—A religious military order that fights for the Kurians. The order was created and is closely directed by a branch of the New Universal Church that is more patriarchal and theocratic than the typical churchmen. Famous for their brutality, the Moondaggers were key to putting down the revolts in the Great Plains Gulag in 2072. They were nearly destroyed, however, when they resorted to similar tactics against the legworm ranchers in Kentucky from 2075 to 2076.
NEW UNIVERSAL CHURCH—A religious order of trusted Quislings who help manage the spiritual and intellectual needs of the human subject populations in the Kurian Zone. Much of their time is spent rationalizing the deaths of those taken by the Reapers and keeping the human breeding stock quiescent. Higher-level churchmen are often trained by the Kurians in similar psychic skills as those used by Kurian agents.
QUICKWOOD—An olive-tree-like plant that acts as a catalyst in a Reaper’s bloodstream, freezing it in place and killing it quickly. The only drawback to Quickwood is its rarity, as the small supply that Southern Command managed to acquire was virtually destroyed by Solon’s Forces, though some seeds were saved and a few plants now thrive in the wild and in controlled and defended environments. The Kurians are working on modifying their Reapers to be immune to Quickwood, but for now the Reapers deal with a Quickwood wound by a fast self-amputation, if practicable.
QUISLINGS—Humans who work for the Kurian Order. There is a great deal of dispute as to what exactly constitutes a “Quisling,” but usually someone at the bottom rung of the social ladder who follows orders is not considered to be actively supporting the Kurians, even if he happens to drive a collection van for the Reapers. Quislings are more commonly held to be those actively working for their Kurian Masters in pursuit of immunity for themselves and their families. Quislings who do great service in the name of their Kurian lord are sometimes awarded a “brass ring” granting immunity from the Reapers to themselves and their immediate family.
RATBITS—A short-lived Kurian experiment to create a rodent with a higher concentration of vital aura, possibly as a replacement for difficult-to-control human populations. They are approximately raccoon-sized and combine the features of a rat and a rabbit. They have a level of intelligence that is measurably close to that of a human child in grammar school. They were bred in a vast expanse of Texas Hill Country known as “the Ranch,” but they resented being harvested as much as humans did, and they escaped into the wild, eventually forcing the abandonment of the Ranch.
REAPERS—The avatars of the Kurian Order, Reapers are very powerful humanoids that form the basis of most of our vampire legends. With only a vestigial reproductive system and a simplified digestive process based on the consumption of blood and a small amount of flesh, Reapers are fast, strong, and deadly, particularly at night when the connection with their Kurian Master is strongest. They are strong enough to tear through metal doors and hatches, can jump to second- or sometimes third-story windows, and can run as fast as most cars can move on all but the best-maintained roads. Hunters find Reapers most vulnerable during daylight hours, when the Kurian connection is weaker, especially directly after a feeding, when the Reaper is sleepy from the blood intake and the Kurian is lost in the sensations of the transfer of energy.
TWISTED CROSS—A military faction of the Kurian Order, the Twisted Cross uses trained humans to operate fighting Reapers in a manner similar to a Kurian Lord’s. The Twisted Cross activities in North America were stillborn when the Golden Ones revolted and destroyed their base in 2067. There are reports of more successful Twisted Cross military formations operating around the Black Sea and in Southeastern Europe and Asia Minor, the Asian Subcontinent, and Japan.
WOLVES—The great guerilla fighters of the Hunter class, Wolves are famous for their endurance, sense of smell and hearing, and ability to operate without logistical support. They can cover a good deal of ground in their all-day runs, often evading even mechanized opponents.
VITAL AURA—The energy created by all living things, but enriched and refined in sentient, emotionally developed creatures. Thus, a human will have much more vital aura than, say, a much heavier cow or pig. This energy is what sustains a Kurian over his extended, and seemingly limitless, life span.
GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES
FREEHOLD—Any area in active resistance to the Kurian Order. Every man, woman, and child in a freehold tends to be familiar with the use of a variety of weapons essential for securing their homesteads, and highly motivated to keep out of the clutches of the Reapers. Freeholds vary in size, but the largest ones in North America are the United Free Republics in the Transmississippi and the old Quebec/Maritime provinces of Canada.
KENTUCKY FREE STATE—A freehold comprising much of the old state of Kentucky, minus much of the bluegrass region, some parts of the Jackson Purchase, and the area around Louisville and with the addition of Evansville, the small industrial city in Southwestern Indiana and some of the more mountainous sections of Northeastern Tennessee. Previously it was a quiet, neutral territory where the legworm ranchers grazed their giant creatures. Thanks to the heavy-handed actions of the Moondaggers in pursuit of Southern Command’s formations from 2075 to 2076, the Kentucky revolt broke out and resulted in the formation of the Army of Kentucky. It, with the support of a single Southern Command brigade in the western half of the state, managed to break away from the Kurian Order and form a freehold.
GEORGIA CONTROL—A Kurian Zone known for its high-quality weapons and trade goods covering much of the old Southeastern United States. Unlike most Kurian Zones, management of this region is left to Quisling “directors” who keep the Master Kurians fed through meticulous record-keeping of the health, productivity, and reliability of the human population. Their world is one of gruesome and remorseless “bottom lines.”
GREAT PLAINS GULAG—An ill-defined region running roughly from South Dakota to North Texas, Eastern Colorado to the Ozarks. It is a patchwork of Kurian Zones, mostly made up of fortified farms, mines, and oil and natu
ral gas fields, with Nomansland in between. The Kurians there are mostly a passive problem for Southern Command, but they react to any attempts to take over territory with scorched-earth tactics and depressingly thorough slaughter of civilian populations. It is also one of the Kurian Zones with the widest gap between the freedoms and lifestyles enjoyed by the privileged Quislings and the subject labor force.
IOWA RINGLANDS—A Kurian Zone almost completely devoid of Kurians, the Ringlands are a collection of vast, rich, and highly productive rural estates given to brass ring winners from all over North America. They have a small but well-trained military known as the Iowa Guard and a superb education system for training the next generation of Quisling leadership. Young men and women brought up in Iowa are often chosen for the best positions in other Kurian Zones when their ring-winner parents encourage them to move out and earn their own rings.
KURIAN ZONE (OR “THE ZONE”)—There are many different flavors of Kurian Zones, but they all have a few things in common. The remote Kurian Lord and his Reaper avatars are at the top of a pyramid of power. Below them are a few trusted Quislings and the New Universal Church high officials directing a slightly larger middle layer of functionaries and police. Kurian Zones tend to have only small groups of well-armed soldiers, relying on club-wielding police, mercenaries, and special travelling military cadres like the Moondaggers to protect them.
MIDSOUTH ZONE—A weaker Kurian Zone comprising Memphis on the Mississippi, Nashville, and the areas in between. It is considered an ally of the Georgia Control, maintaining its independence by providing military assistance to the Georgia directors now and then.
NOMANSLAND—Any area not part of a Kurian Zone or a freehold is generally considered Nomansland. This can include stretches of useless, postapocalyptic wasteland inhabited only by a few bandits or dangerous Grogs to the bigger Grog lands of St. Louis and the northern half of Missouri. Frequently, headhunter gangs roam across Nomansland areas, looking for runaways from the Kurian Zone to return for bounty or sell to the highest bidder.
One mistake the unwary make in venturing into Nomansland is assuming that there is little chance of meeting a Reaper. Kurians who wind up on the losing end of a power struggle or ambitious offspring of a powerful Kurian can sometimes be found in Nomansland zones, trying to incorporate that region into the Kurian Order or simply hiding out from powerful enemies.
NORTHWEST ORDNANCE—A collection of old rust-belt states around the Great Lakes, excluding Chicago and Wisconsin and including some bits of Southern Ontario. The Northwest Ordnance is viewed by the rest of the Kurian Order as something of a “sick man of North America,” and jealous eyes are watching it from all directions, waiting for it to fall so that its more valuable parts and populations might be divided up.
SOUTHERN COMMAND—Not so much a geographic region as a military command and operational zone, Southern Command was one of the first networks of military resistance formed after the Kurian Invasion in 2022, and in pure manpower is the largest. It maintains contact with other freeholds and formerly cooperated with them when possible, but after several disasters and reverses in the last few years, it has adopted a “defensive stance,” concentrating on better defending the United Free Republics against Reaper and Grog incursions and training.
UNITED FREE REPUBLICS—Once considered one of the bright spots of North America, the UFR has retreated into a well-guarded neutrality. The United Free Republics had a tumultuous birth, when the collapse of Consul Solon’s Transmississippi, which had overthrown the Ozark Free Territory, caused a ripple effect in the surrounding Kurian Zones, especially in Texas. After ridding themselves of Consul Solon through a mixture of luck and planning, the Ozark Forces plunged into Texas and Eastern Oklahoma in response to uprisings there, managed to surround and then occupy Dallas, and plunged south into parts of the Rio Grande valley. Shortly thereafter, the United Free Republics entity was formed, somewhat along the lines of the old states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas. Military reversals led to new elected leadership and a new direction for UFR’s military arm, Southern Command, but most believe it is only a matter of time before the UFR manages to link up with the freehold in Colorado and the newly organized rebels in Kentucky.
* friend-as-important-as-family
* Knight, Valentine’s Exile (Renaissance Press: 2129).
* A sort of baboon-like creature from the Golden One’s home planet. Some think they are a common evolutionary link between the Golden Ones and Gray Ones. They hunt in a mob, are socialized to an extent, have a rudimentary set of signals that pass for a vocabulary, and are notorious for infanticide during famines and eating their own wounded and aged regardless of season.
* A Golden One philosopher, famous for arguing against a clan-based society and building one around the individual and larger society.
* Recent research has shown that the Georgia Control’s military was much smaller than first estimated. They maintained roughly a dozen brigades, dividing their time between short deployments and rests in rather luxurious military reserves. Their mobility and skill at concentrating quickly made the Control forces seem much larger to the analysts of the time. Like most Kurian Zones, the Control had difficulty trusting their populace with arms, so every soldier had to pass through long periods of training and indoctrination through the Church and other institutions before joining the elite of the Control’s military.
* Armed Specialists
* Relocation and repurposing, often a euphemism for the last ride in the collection van.
* Eastern slang for runaways. Those who purposely dwell in the Nomansland that isn’t freehold or Kurian Zone are sometimes called “hares.”
* A post-coital recovery drink aimed at men.
* Surplus to Requirements, i.e., someone culled for consumption by the Kurians.
* Our narrator is being too modest here. He also became renowned as a repairman and fixed an old pressure drill. He also sometimes stayed after the shift to work hardware and put two broken conveyors right.
* Our narrator may be using a metaphor here, but the Xeno Department of Miskatonic-Copenhagen has done tests on “Gray Ones” that have shown that an isolated specimen able only to smell the air of another group imitates the emotional state of the group it can neither see nor hear.
* The rumors Ahn-Kha had heard were true. See Valentine’s Resolve.
* An Ob-Gyn who had been careless in her choice of boyfriends was arrested and removed from the Xanadu facility. She had, however, left a “poison pill” behind in the form of a loyal nurse, who arranged for the accidental destruction of several years’ worth of viable Reaper embryos. Reapers became almost impossible to replace in the northern half of Eastern North America for several years thereafter.
* There is evidence the Moondagger commander demanded exactly that, a “free hand to deal with all enemies of whatever uniform,” as he wrote back to Columbus.
* Fall With Honor
* At least one failed. There is a “self-destruct” harness in the Resistance Museum in Atlanta. Apparently whoever was wearing it removed it by hooking it on a sharp rock and cutting it off in the style of a bear scratching its back on a tree.
* The vector for transmission by scratch seemed to be either the specimen’s own fresh blood or virus-containing fecal matter caught under the nails. Ravies sufferers scratch themselves anywhere there are hair follicles, often until they draw blood.
* An allusion to an underground gangrel creature created by the twentieth-century fantasist J. R. R. Tolkien.
Table of Contents
Cover
Contents
TITLE PAGE
ALSO BY E.E. KNIGHT
COPYRIGHT
EPIGRAPH
PART I: USEFUL TO THE ORDER
THE CURTAIN RISES
THE BLACK PRINCE OF THE WHITE PALACE
THE HEADHUNTERS
NIGHT RIDE TO MARYLAND
THE BEER GARDEN ON THE CHEAT RIVER
THE BECKLEY BLOO
D
TINDER
PURGE AT THE WHITE PALACE
PART TWO: THE BLACK CURRENCY
THE LAST STOP
THE FIRST NOTES OF THE CRESCENDO
I MAKE A FRIEND
NEW ARRIVALS
BLEECHER’S TRY AT A RESOLUTION
PART THREE: CONQUEST AND CLEANSING
LONGLINER ON A SHORT LEASH
GETTING MY GUN
MY WAR BEGINS
THE HOLLOW MEN
GOOD-BYE TO LONGLINER
THE DREADCOATS ARE COMING
ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
COAL COUNTRY CALLS FOR HELP
MYTHIC ARMY
A SUSPICIOUS CEASE-FIRE
THE CURTAIN FALLS
TO THE WHITE PALACE
APPENDIX
GLOSSARY
GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES