by E. E. Knight
“Always interesting times, the pause between conquest and exploitation. I wonder if they’re as organized as they think they are,” Styachowski said. Valentine’s selection of documentation from Bullfrog’s files had given her quick mind enough to make a guess as to what the column’s next move would be.
“Or if we’re as beat as they think we are,” Valentine added.
Valentine stood at one of the glassless windows above the entrance to the office building, on the second floor. Bullfrog hadn’t gotten around to reclaiming this floor of the building yet. Birds flitted in one side of the building and out the other, zipping over low cubicles and around offices.
Creeper and broken glass crunched underfoot as he tottered to the window, glad that the men hadn’t seen Ahn-Kha half carry him upstairs. The men and women who had followed him out of General Martinez’s camp sat around the door of the lot and in the notch leading toward the main entrance; unformed, unranked, a mass of faces and variegated uniforms—some still damp, Valentine noted, from a quick wash. Some elbowed others at Valentine’s appearance, and faces turned up toward them. The chatter stilled.
The silence of their anticipation made Valentine oddly uncomfortable.
Valentine inflated his lungs, ignored the pain in his rib. “You all know about the Cats, am I right?”
“Yes, sir,” a few answered back. Valentine thought about making them all holler a response back at him, but he wanted an honest conversation with the men, not an oration filled with theatrical tricks.
“They work behind the Kurian line,” Valentine said. “Sometimes in their uniform. I’ve done it on more than one occasion.”
He let that sink in for a moment before continuing. “We’re making for what’s left of Southern Command in the Boston Mountains. But if we keep going as we are, snaking back and forth, backtracking and sidestepping, we’ll only show up sick, hungry, unarmed and tired—if we make it at all. If you men are willing, I know a way we can ride instead of walk, and join our comrades with rifles in our hands and ammunition in our cartridge cases.”
They perked up at this. Even the jokers and snoozers in every informal assembly of personnel shut their mouths and fixed eyes on him.
“There’ll be risks,” Valentine continued. “But the risk of getting across the Arkansas River and through the lines with an unarmed column this big is about the same, by my calculations.
“So we have to balance the likely risks with the possible rewards. Anyone who isn’t up for it, anyone who wants out of the game, can stay here with Colonel Meadows and Lieutenant Frum. Guerrilla service is just as honorable, just as important. But I have to make it to the Boston Mountains for reasons of my own. Anyone who wants to follow me, meet at the hollow where Lieutenant Post and and the Wolves are guarding the wagons.”
“Then what?” Styachowski asked from among the audience. Just as they’d arranged when Valentine went over his prepared speech with her.
“Then we shave, strip and sew.”
Chapter Five
The Ruins of Little Rock, Arkansas, February: The city never recovered from the nuclear blast inflicted on it in the death throes of the Old World. Though the fires went out and the radiation dispersed, the only life to return permanently was nonhuman. Pine Bluff, closer to the breadbasket of southeastern Arkansas, replaced it as a transportation hub; Mountain Home and Fort Scott surpassed it as government and military centers. At the height of the Ozark Free Territory’s progress, it could boast of little more than a dock and a ferry in a cleared-out patch of rubble, though even that was based on the north side of the river; the south-bank heart of the city was avoided as if it were cursed earth.
The new rulers have a grander vision of a rail, road, and river traffic hub built on the decayed remnants of the old. The Rocks, as the locals call them, buzz with activity. The new human constructs have an anthill quality to them; low buildings made out of the blasted components of pre-2022 architecture. Some are already smoothed over by fresh concrete and white paint, and a more traveled eye might think of a little Greek town between hill and Aegean. The pilings and ruined bridges prevent barges from going farther up the river—only small boat traffic goes west to Fort Scott—so Little Rock is an amphibian marshaling yard. Warehouses and tents under the New Order’s supply officers support the final mopping up and reorganization of the Ozarks. The river hums with traffic, and trucks and horse wagons fill transport pools as Consul Solon builds his capital.
One building stands apart from the others, avoided by all but a few humans who work on its exterior and still-unfinished upper floors. It is a Kurian Tower, home of one of the new masters of what had been the Ozark Free Territory. Other towers like it are going up in Pine Bluff, Mountain Home, Hot Springs, and a dozen other, smaller towns. Only Consul Solon has seen them all.
Consul Solon. Little is known of him, save that he came from somewhere on the eastern seaboard. The name makes Quisling captains break a sweat. Children are hushed with warnings that Consul Solon will hear about misbehavior. An argument can be stopped with a threat to take the matter to him—a turn of events that might mean doom to both sides. Consul Solon is the man responsible for keeping human order in the various provinces of what was the Free Territory. He answers only to his Masters who have carved up the region: the dark princes of Fort Scott and Crowley’s Ridge, the Springs, the Plateau, the Southern Marches, the Corridor . . . and other regions. Unlike much of the Kurian Zone, Solon is trusted to ensure the defense of all with a common force, rather than dozens of private armies in the hands of each overlord. Each Kurian has a Reaper representative at Solon’s temporary headquarters at Fort Scott, the Consul’s nerve center until the grander Consular Palace is built on the north bank of the Arkansas near Little Rock.
“Get out of the way of the trucks, like obedient little Quislings,” Valentine ordered over his shoulder to Post, who signaled with an arm to pull the files off the paved road. Valentine leaned against the base of an old traffic signal pole on the outskirts of Little Rock and waved first to a motorcycle, then to the trucks as they passed on southward. Only ten feet of the pole remained; the rest of it lay in an overgrown ditch atop an engine block. But ample enough for leaning.
Valentine pulled off his helmet and rubbed his newly bald skull as he surveyed the column. The fuzzy-headed troops looked good enough in their Quisling uniforms, though they marched poorly. They were all shorn of their hair, and even the elaborate mustaches and beards—the pride and joy of many of the soldiers of Southern Command—had been left on the dead leaves in the woods near Bullfrog’s station.
He had organized his footsore charges into three parts after leaving seventy-odd men and women tired of the trail or unwilling to face the risks of operating in the enemy’s uniform. At the lead were Finner’s Wolves, bereft of their beloved buckskins. They now wore the uniforms of the TMMP, an acronym for the Trans-Mississippi Mounted Patrol—the military police of Solon’s newborn empire, entrusted with everything from guarding rail bridges to directing traffic. He, his officers, the Bears and the Jamaicans wore the simple, shapeless uniforms of recruits newly incorporated into the Quisling AOT—Army of the Trans-Mississippi.
At the center of the column, teams of four “recruits” each carried a Quickwood beam on their shoulders, faking exercises under the shouted direction of their NCOs. Mrs. Smalls rode in one of the wagons with the camp equipment; her husband and son led teams carrying the sick. The family had insisted on coming along, so that Mrs. Smalls could have her baby in the hospital reported to be in Little Rock. Valentine thought she stuck out like a cardinal in a coven.
Valentine watched the southbound trucks kick up gravel from the potholes with hungry eyes. In his days with the Wolves, a lightly armed convoy of six trucks falling into his lap would have been cause for celebration. He would have waited for signals from the observation scouts, then pitched into the convoy if his scouts flashed the all clear. The Quislings were sure of themselves if they were sending trucks with nothing mo
re than a motorcycle and sidecar leading the way down the long road to Hot Springs. General Martinez must not have been too aggressive in the eastern Ouachitas over the winter, and Bullfrog only attacked the occasional Quisling target at night.
When the way cleared he got his column up and moving again. He stayed by his signal post, watching the men’s faces as they walked toward Little Rock. A few looked excited, even eager to play the game, but others wore their fear like lead overcoats. They moved with the deliberative plod of men too tired and hungry to hope.
“Let’s step out a little more, Calgary,” Valentine called to a former Guard shuffling down the road with a hangdog expression. “We’re having a hot meal tonight.”
Calgary picked up the pace and smacked his lips, pleased for some reason to be recognized. Valentine felt better too. The weeks of starts and stops, double-backs, circling, hunger and cold in the hills, and soggy, fireless camps, keeping seven hundred men out of the way of Quisling patrols, were over. They were right where Valentine had placed his finger on the map at the conference the night they left Colonel Meadows and Bullfrog, and his column had all solemnly shaved their heads—starting with Ahn-Kha’s destruction of Valentine’s shoulder-length locks. At first it had been play, learning the AOT and TMPP ranks, working on their imaginary stories as mercenary recruits in Arkansas, or up from the swamps of Louisiana or the woods of East Texas, looking to seek their fortune in the new empire Solon was raising.
When they emerged from the hills and turned up the road for the old state capital, the men grew more and more anxious as the task became real, rather than just an imagined challenge in the future. At a rest halt, Valentine gathered the men and spoke to them as best as he could, relaying details of a plan he had kept from all save Ahn-Kha, though he suspected Styachowski had an inkling. When the time came to speak to them he had the men unharness the wagons and rest on a hillside, making a natural amphitheater.
“You all know I’m a Cat,” he finished, booming the words out so all could hear. “As of today, you’re all Cats too. We’re going to pretend we’re Quislings recruits. Lieutenant Frum has phoned in to headquarters here the happy news that he’s finally met, indeed overfilled, his recruitment quota. We’ve got faked documents requisitioning us food, new clothing, shoes and weapons. You’ve all suffered because of shortages of those things. The Quislings in the Ruins have plenty, and we’re going to trick them out of them, get across the river and rejoin Southern Command. Just keep your mouths shut. One loose tongue could do us all in.”
So as they approached the Ruins, Valentine needed something to get their minds off their situation. Most of the men were worried they were walking right into a prison yard, the intermediate holding place leading to the inevitable Reaper embrace.
“How about a song, Jefferson. An old marching tune. ‘Yellow Rose of Texas,’ anyone?”
“Huh?” Jefferson said, looking down from his wagon.
“Narcisse, I’ve heard your singing. Give us a song,” Valentine said.
“One everyone can sing?”
“If you can think of one.”
Narcisse ran her tongue beneath her lips. “Lesseee . . .
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible, swift sword:
His truth is marching on.”
The men took up the march with a will. They began stepping out in time; some, used to singing hymns or just musically inclined, added harmonies. Even the Jamaicans knew the words.
While the song lasted Finner fell in beside him.
“Captain, you sure about what you’re doing?”
Valentine considered telling him to shut his mouth and obey orders, but the man who’d brought him south from Minnesota deserved better. “Commanding one of the worst marches in Ozark history. I’ll let Consul Solon take care of transport from now on.”
“But from the Ruins? Why not grab some boats and just cross at some quiet bend upriver? From a distance we’ll look like a training march.”
“Styachowski says the AOT is scraping men from every border station. Little Rock is a supply depot. New formations are brought there now, to be equipped before being sent elsewhere.”
“If I had a suspicious mind I might be worried that you were marching everyone into a prison yard. That’d rate a brass ring and an estate in Iowa. If I had a suspicious mind, that is.”
“Would it make you feel better to know that I’m keeping your Wolves outside the wire?”
“It’d make me feel better. Don’t know about the rest of these lunks. How far outside?”
“About seven miles. I want you to camp around Mt. Summit. We won’t be in Little Rock for more than three or four days, I expect. If this turns bad we’ll make for you if we can. You’ve got a good view of the old Highway 10 from there. If I need to talk to you and I can’t come myself, I’ll send Ahn-Kha or Post. Just a nice ride in the country. We’ll have one of these red bandannas tied on our heads.”
“Red bandannas. Okay.”
“One more thing.” Valentine reached into his AOT officer’s winter coat, a hanging mass of leather and canvas covered with bellows pockets. “Here’s a report . . . well, several reports. Send a couple of good, and I mean real good, Wolves out to the Boston Mountains. They’re to find whoever’s in charge there and hand them over. A Lifeweaver would be ideal.”
“I’ve got eight men who’ve run courier for Martinez up north. They know where to go.”
“Keep those uniforms handy. You may need them again.”
“Very well, sir.”
“More responsibility than you wanted, I’m sure.”
Finner rocked back and forth on his heels, keeping time to the music, fighting a smile. “I’m getting used to it. I think I’m better at this than I thought. Hope you didn’t think I was accusing . . .” Finner let the sentence trail off.
“No. Stay suspicious, Finner. If I’d been more suspicious when we hit the Free Territory—oh, never mind. I want to pay this Consul Solon back with some of his own coin.”
Finner and his Wolves left them while they were still in the hills. The road sloped down into the Ruins. It began to rain again. Valentine put an old green towel over his shaven head so the ends hung down like a bloodhound’s ears and seated an old Kevlar helmet over it.
“This cover my scar?” he asked Post. “I’m worried I’ve made Solon’s Most Wanted.”
“Pretty much,“ Post said, tilting his head to see the thin white line descending Valentine’s right cheek. “It’s shaded off, anyway. You can still see the bit by your eye. It’s the haircut that makes the real difference.”
“That wasn’t a haircut, that was clear-cutting.”
“Your teeth could use some coffee stains to complete the disguise. I’ve never known anyone who spends so much time brushing his teeth in the field.”
“Every meal, the way my momma taught me.” That memory caused a brief stab: the last time he’d seen them in Minnesota he was eleven and she’d—stop it. “If you’d ever seen a nice, runny oral infection you’d join me,” he finished, a little lamely.
The column passed shells of buildings. Empty gas stations, strip malls with their glass fronts blasted out, foundations of homes that had burned and died grew closer and closer together as they came into the city limits. Gutted two-story structures gave way to piles of rubble, though the highway they walked on had been cleared. The debris lined either side of the road like snowdrifts.
The column sighted a guard post.
“Okay, Post, I’m going to talk to them. They’ll probably take me to the CO of this scrapheap. If I’m not back in two hours, or if you hear shooting, just fade into the hills. Split up if you have to.”
“Told me that, sir.”
“I’m repeating it. Nobody, not even Ahn-Kha, goes in after me. We want them confused; fighting will unconfuse them faster th
an anything.”
A sergeant with a corporal trailing behind like a heeled dog stepped from a little shelter at the spectacle of a quarter mile of humanity waking down the road toward his post. They wore tiger-striped cammies, with AOT yellow insignia at the shoulder. Valentine kicked his horse on and trotted forward. Ahn-Kha stepped in front of his horse and took the reigns.
“I heard you speaking to Post. If this turns, we’re not to go in after you?”
“Not even you, old horse.”
“If I can’t go in after you, my David, I’m coming in with you.”
“Post will need you if—”
“You’ll need me more.”
Ahn-Kha’s ears went flat and the Grog took a stance a little wider than a riverside oak, four hundred pounds of road-block.
“You’ll be my bodyguard then,” Valentine said, knowing when he was beaten, and not wanting to look like there was a crisis in his command.
They approached the guard station. Valentine hailed the sergeant from horseback.
“We’re a day late, I know. Bad weather,” Valentine said.
“A day late for what?” the sergeant said. He looked more at Ahn-Kha than at either Valentine or the unarmed column far behind. Valentine was suddenly glad Ahn-Kha had insisted on accompanying him.
Valentine glared, and turned his chin so the three pips on his collar showed.
“Colonel,” the sergeant added, saluting.
“For outfit and transport, Sergeant. Recruits up from Station 26, District Commander Frum’s HQ.”
The corporal checked a nearly blank clipboard. “You’re Colonel Le Sain.”
“From Louisiana,” Valentine said, opening a satchel. He passed down a wad of paperwork in an expandable waterproof envelope. “Route Orders are near the top. You’ll see supply, transport, OI for each recruit and the roster’s in the back, not that you need to concern yourself with the rest. Don’t think you have to check off every name that passes; my officers are responsible for everyone getting on the barge. I take the heat if anyone deserts.”