by E. E. Knight
The Grog cocked its head from side to side, half closing its eyes.
“Does it talk?” Valentine asked, touching its thick horn-skin.
“He gets by with a few meaningful grunts. He’s a bit of a firebug; we can’t let him have matches or a lantern or any-thing. Loves to watch things burn; they all do from what we can tell. He’s a living table-scrap disposal. He thinks corncobs are a real treat. Potato peels, too. Would you like a root beer, Grish?”
Valentine looked at the half-dozen badly healed bullet wounds in the creature’s leg and abdomen. A long knife scar also ran across its shoulder and down its armored chest. It unrolled its tongue.
“Grish loves root beer. Let’s sit down.”
Valentine listened to the small noises of the empty building. “There’s more than just you to this Institute, I suppose?”
An icebox devoid of ice sat next to a slop sink, and a card table stood under the inadequate lightbulb. Shelves held a few dishes and cups. O’Connor drew three drafts from a scratched plastic barrel resting in the icebox. “There’s one other scholarly fellow like myself around now, and he keeps even stranger hours. We have a couple of would-be students, but they have to scratch a living so they work in the day.” The Grog held out both hands for its sweet drink and scuttled off into the shadows with its cup.
“Just as well. He’s kind of messy when he drinks from a cup. I think Grishnak is pretty dumb even for a Grog. They have a language, but they don’t use writing. They send little rune-stones in hollow bone tubes to communicate Qver distance. And the beads in their hair are kind of like military decorations, family totems, stuff like that. But back to the Institute. The rest of the team is in the field. Our elder sage is up around Mountain Home. I don’t know if you heard, but five or six Reapers are on the loose up north, well within the Free Territory, and they’re causing quite a problem. They’re moving around faster than word of them travels, and every time it seems like they’re cornered, they slip out. There’s bad weather up north, and that’s hurting things.”
He solemnly opened his notebook and licked the end of his pencil. “Okay, Valentine, what’s the story?”
Valentine relayed the events at the Mississippi crossing for the second time in as many days. O’Connor scribbled.
“And you can’t link the hair-raising feeling to anything you heard, saw, or smelled. You’re positive?”
“I guess I can compare it to… let me see… the feeling you get when you’re next to a window on a very cold winter day. Like the heat is being pulled out of your body. I can’t put it any better than that. Or a feeling I got once crossing under a high-voltage line in the dark; I knew something was above me, but I couldn’t say what. How would you describe an itch to someone who has never had one?”
“I couldn’t. You’ve smelled a Reaper, right? Since your invocation as a Wolf?”
Valentine nodded, relishing the smooth sweetness of the root beer. “Very up close. Eveready held an impromptu dissection of one before we pulled out of the Yazoo. Smelled like an offal heap.”
O’Connor thought for a moment. He leaned back in the tube-steel chair, causing it to creak. “There’ve been a couple of incidents like yours. Not just Wolves, either. A few people have a sensitivity to Reapers. A lot of animals are the same way. We think it’s because of smell, but we’ve seen too much weirdness in the last forty years to discount anything, including psychic powers. If it keeps happening, try to figure out at what range you sense them, if it makes a difference whether there are more than one, whether they can be distinguished as individuals, stuff like that.”
“Can they tell who’s who by our lifesign?”
“According to the Lifeweavers they can’t, unless they’re really close and it’s a good read. Lifesign varies with mood, whether the person has just eaten, stuff like that. Of course you guys learn to disguise it. Distance seems to matter most of all. Like you can recognize movement from a long way away, tell a man from a woman at a certain distance, and then distinguish individuals up close. Of course it helps if you’ve run into the person a couple of times. But back to your question, I think they can tell who’s who under certain circumstances. There’ve been incidents where the Reapers have gone after a specific person. I don’t know if it was bullshit or not, but we had a report from New Mexico about Reapers gathering from miles off to hunt one of the Wolves out there. I guess his squad split up, and they all went after the one. Of course, lifesign reads better in the desert, there’s less interference from plants and animals, and they might have just been chasing the best signal. Odd coincidence that it was someone who had done them a lot of damage, though.”
“By the way,” Valentine added, remembering. “There was a funny design on the boat. Kind of a bent x.”
“That’s good that you noticed it. Can you remember it well enough to draw it?”
Valentine reached for the pencil and beneath the researcher’s notes traced out the design.
“You’re sure it faced that way. Not like this?” He drew a Third Reich swastika.
“No, it was facing the other way. Is it important?” Valentine asked.
“Hard to say. It’s been showing up lately, so I did some checking. That symbol can be found on temples in the Asian subcontinent, on Buddhist artifacts, as well as over here in American Indian cave paintings. It appears in the ruins of Troy, on Egyptian walls, even in China. I will say this: whoever used it in prehistoric times sure got around.”
Chapter Seven
Arkansas, spring of the forty-second year of the Kurian Order: Valentine spent the winter months in diligent pursuit of his commission as lieutenant. While learning about interior lines and maneuver in the face of the enemy in the classroom, he became acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of oxen and pack mules in the field. He would wheedle six different calibers of ammunition out of the arsenal during the day and construe Clausewitz at night. He finished a thesis on the argument for objective reality, defending Socrates against Protagoras and Gorgias after earlier arguing about the quality of the latest barrel of flour with the demanding camp wives.
An astute observer with a detailed memory, Valentine molded his conduct after the officers he respected. He admired lehavre’s methodical planning of every company movement, each leader knowing his assignment so well the captain would often issue just two orders in a day of march: “strike the tents” at dawn and “make camp” at dusk. The company functioned as a well-tuned machine from the moment its commander hit the on switch. He appreciated Lieutenant Mallow’s role as senior in amplifying and following up on his commander’s orders, and copied Brostojf’s devotion to his men in supplying their every want. If he also avoided Mallow’s indecisiveness in the absence of clear and specific orders from the captain and Brostojf’s binge drinking, it showed that he could learn how not to behave, as well. His men liked him and, what was more, respected him for the simple reason that he showed them respect.
The Guards attending the Officer’s Training College chided him for his drab deerskin clothing and his shyness. He avoided the boisterous weekend outings, a fixture of college life since education began, and kept quiet in class unless called on. He remained silent about his experiences even with the other Wolves who dropped in occasionally as students and lecturers. He grew to know the scholars of Miskatonic Hall, read some of their raw files concerning the Kurians, and listened more than he talked. These traits, but especially the last, proved rare among the alternately bitching and bragging young Wolves.
Still, he felt lonely and fell into the trap of pretending to prefer being alone, thus leading to further loneliness in a vicious circle of solitude that young men of a certain temperament build for themselves and then inhabit. But apart from the lack of companionship, he enjoyed his time as an acting-lieutenant more than anything else in his life up to that point. The constant challenges, physical and mental, stimulated him.
Zulu Company saw action twice that winter, but owing to his studies and lack of experience, Valenti
ne remained back at the reserve camp with the sick and other dependents, commanding a squad of equally discouraged Wolves and being responsible for guarding the cumbersome wagons and baggage. Marksmanship contests for the noncombatants and rehearsing musical follies to welcome back the returning Wolves provided comic relief for the men’s tensions, and every time one of his squad smuggled a woman into an isolated tepee, he pretended not to notice. By the first silent green explosion of spring, Zulu Company moved from Pine Bluff to the
Ouachita River, returning to active duty.
* * *
“Sorry, Valentine, you’re staying behind again.” Captain LeHavre put down his piece of chalk. The slanted rays of the falling sun gave his features a warm golden cast.
Behind him, the blackboard (which was actually green) had a rough map of southeastern Arkansas and the Louisiana borderlands. Dotted circles traced locations the other two platoons would explore on the long-range patrol consuming the rest of the month. Next to the young Wolf, Brostoff and Mallow exchanged comments in an undertone.
“Questions, gentlemen?” the captain asked.
“What are you leaving Val, sir?” Brostoff asked.
“His whole platoon. Just because he’s staying doesn’t mean he’ll be unoccupied. In a sense, while we’re out, he’s the first line of defense of Southern Command. Once the rivers fall a little more, a hard-riding column could raid this place without us cutting their trail, let alone sighting them. The river needs watching, too. He needs men for patrols, running supplies down from Regiment and out to our caches, mapping and surveying these border farms.”
“Bartering for rice, too, Valentine,” Mallow said. “We’ll all be sick of the stuff by fall.”
“Beats going hungry. Time was there wasn’t much more than trappers out here,” LeHavre added. “Now there are some farms—plantations more like—and if we can get them organized, we might count the land out to the Mississippi ours. It would take a couple thousand men to garrison it properly, though, and unless they provide some irregular forces, that’s not going to happen. You’re a good talker, Valentine. Sound out a few of these locals and see if they’ll accept arms and ammunition for a patrol service.”
Valentine and his platoon saw the other two thirds of Zulu Company off the following dawn.
“Give my regards to the gators,” one of Valentine’s platoon japed.
“Leastways we’ll be doin‘ more with our blades than whittlin’,” countered one of the men from the southbound files, spitting sunflower seed shells.
Valentine’s platoon worked the lines of the ferry the company constructed for the river crossing. Within weeks, the river would be wadable at a number of drifts, but LeHavre wanted to start exploring the southern borders with the Kurian Zone now.
Blooming dogwoods decorated the slow-moving river. Valentine rode across the river with the supply mules and surveyed the campsite from the opposite bank. Zulu Company’s tepees and tents were hidden, set well back from the river. Even if the Quislings sent armed patrol boats up the river, they wouldn’t know the Wolves were there once the raft and lines were hidden.
“You might think you’ve got the easy duty, but it’s a serious responsibility,” a voice said from behind.
Valentine turned. LeHavre emerged from the foliage, weighed down by map cases, a telescope, and the company’s only submachine gun. The clouds had thickened, and the forest was a canopy of shadow.
“This is a tricky corner you’re in, Valentine. The Kurians could float up the Ouachita, raid in from Louisiana, or come across the Mississippi. They have a big garrison at Vicksburg and the barges to float them. Your first job is to protect Southern Command by looking out for that kind of thing. If they come in strength, send as much information back to Regiment double-quick. Cause trouble for ‘em if you can, but your men are worth more than Quisling conscripts, so make sure you don’t get cornered. I’ve left you here for a reason, not because you’re the junior. Fact is, another time I’d stay myself.”
“Yes, sir. Hopefully it’ll be a quiet summer.”
A third man joined them, the bulky senior NCO, Sergeant Patel. “Everything’s across, sir. Scouts are out and the column is ready to go.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. I’ll be along in a moment.” He turned back to Valentine.
“Count on us being gone six weeks. I’ll send you on a short patrol when we get back, so you can get some experience. I’m going to leave Brostoff out all summer watching the rivers, but I’ll be back with Mallow and his platoon.”
“The chickens will be fat by then, and I’m sure I can find some good-size watermelon.”
“So young, and you already know how old soldiers think. Take care, Mr. Valentine,” LeHavre said, returning Valentine’s salute with his usual grace. “Don’t let anything happen to Southern Command while I’m gone.”
Valentine forced a confident smile when LeHavre winked.
With the patrolling Wolves departing and the day fleeing, Valentine supervised the team dismantling the ferry. They floated the lines and stakes back to the camp-side and rolled the raft out of sight.
“There’s a new occupied farm two miles north of here, Lieutenant Valentine,” Sergeant Quist reported. “Will we be paying them a visit?”
“Keep the men out of the henhouse, if you value your rank, Quist. You know how the captain feels about that sort of thing,” Valentine said, clouding over like the sky above.
“Didn’t mean that, sir. They know better. I meant a social call. Get things off on the right foot. We’ll be moving up and down the river, and we don’t want a gut full of buckshot by accident. He might want to trade for some grub, too.”
“I see. I’m sorry, Quist, wrong conclusion. I’ll make it the first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll take Bozich; having a woman along will seem less threatening. Michaels is the senior Aspirant now, right? I’ll take him, as well. You’ll have to handle things while I’m gone, Sergeant.”
It began to rain, and Valentine walked the perimeter of the camp. He enjoyed a warm rain, the feeling of privacy it afforded. He smelled the sentries’ tobacco smoke even in the wet before seeing them, considered issuing an order against smoking on duty, then rejected the idea. The veterans knew when it was safe to smoke, and the newbies could be taught. Shelter, food, firewood, and security occupied his mind as he wandered through the drizzle, an ear always cocked for sounds in the camp. He used his nose as much as his ears, smelling which way cooking smoke and latrine odors drifted in the prevailing winds. There were Grogs who could hear and smell better than the Wolves. He would have to set still-watches on the river, build some kind of redoubt in case of sudden attack, and arrange for safe storage of ammunition and food supplies. Some kind of netting in the overhead trees might be a good idea, he thought, remembering his encounter with the Harpies in Weening. That made him think of Gabby Cho, and his good mood vanished like a lump of sugar in the rain.
The farm Quist had spoken of consisted of a single well-built barn, still under repair. Only a foundation remained where there had once been a house. The barn stood above a wet inlet from the Ouachita, and rice paddies flourished in the cleared land.
Valentine led Bozich and Michaels up the path from the river. Bozich had a hard face but warm eyes; LeHavre was thinking of making her a sergeant. She was the most diminutive of the Valentine’s Wolves, but had stamina in inverse proportion to her size and carried a carbine with a telescopic sight. Michaels still had pimples and wheezed sometimes, but a little asthma would not necessarily disqualify him from future service. More important, he took his duties as senior Aspirant seriously.
The Wolves smelled cows and goats in the barn, but no pigs. It appeared that the farmers, whoever they were, lived above their animals, and pigs were not ideal livestock for sharing accommodations.
Dogs barked, and a tousle-headed girl in the yard scrambled up a ladder at their approach, calling “Momma! Momma! Momma!” like a wailing siren. A hairy face appeared at one of the lower windows, a
nd the Wolves stopped.
“It’s sojers,” somebody yelled. Valentine’s ears picked up at the sound of a shotgun breech being closed.
Two men emerged, both bearded, one a little more grizzled than the other. The elder held the shotgun Valentine had heard. Both wore faded rags, patched and clean but obviously pre-Kur salvage.
“Y’all out upcountry? Command boys?” the younger asked, within jumping distance of the barn door.
“Course they is,” the armed one said. “Wearin‘ skins an’ deer-booties.”
“We’re camping a couple miles downstream. Thought we’d pay a call,” Valentine said, hand well away from his holster.
One of the barking dogs decided nothing interesting was going to happen and flopped on its side with a sudden motion, almost as if it had been shot. Bozich and the Aspirant snickered, and the dog’s owners exchanged a look.
“That dog beat all. Goes to sleep like he’s droppin‘ de-yad,” the unarmed man said, showing a gap-toothed smile.
The ice was broken, and the men called out their families. Concrete Barn Farm, as the occupants styled it, consisted of two brothers, Rob and Cub Kelly. Their families and another unmarried young man worked the rice paddies, gardens, and fishing streams.
“We-uns think what’s ours is ours,” Rob Kelly, the younger of the brothers, said later, as the men and their wives sat with Valentine’s team on the foundation of the house. Perhaps it had once been a front porch.
Cub nodded in agreement. “Couldn’t take it up by y’all. Taxation, regulations. Law stopping by with empty bellies. Don’t plant, don’t pitch, but want it all the same. Paw took we-uns outer there.”
Bozich opened her mouth, but Valentine shook his head.
“You’re on your own down here, that’s for sure. Lonely country, though, should the others come through.”
Rob Kelly’s wife tightened her mouth.
“Our boys keep good watch,” the younger Kelly said. “We-uns too small fer them to bother with. We-uns jes’ tell Steiner and his Beasts if’n anythin‘ dangerous shows up.”