Valentine's Rising (11 page)

“Why did you leave the Quickwood, Daveed?” Narcisse asked as they rested. Valentine was inspecting a wobbling wheel on the wagon, wondering if it would make it the rest of the trip.

Valentine glanced around, and found himself gritting his teeth at the gesture. He was used to looking over his shoulder in the Kurian Zone, but here, in the middle of titular comrades, the precaution grated.

“The boys we're joining up with, they're one rung on the ladder over the bandits on the borders between the Kurian Zones and the Freeholds. For all I know this General is getting set to go Quisling. He's keeping a lot of men who might be useful elsewhere liquored up and lazy. Their camp's in a state any junior lieutenant in a militia company wouldn't allow, but that doesn't stop them all from talking like they're the last hope of the Ozarks.”

Mrs. Smalls rubbed her lumbar while her husband went to get her a drink from the river. “Some sergeant tried to disarm your funny-talkin' island men while you were with the Grogs. Mr. Post put a stop to it.”

“I'm liking this Captain Randoph less and less,” Valentine said.

 

“Whoo-hoo boys, horsemeat coming in!” a voice called from beside the road.

Valentine saw machine-gun nests set to cover the bend in the road running up against the taller hill of the camp. They'd been set up while there were still leaves on the trees and now looked naked against the hillside.

“We're here,” Randolph said from the saddle of what had been Valentine's horse. The column had made good time; it was barely afternoon of the second day since setting out from the shadow of Magazine Mountain.

“This isn't much of a road, but it's obliging of the others not to patrol it,” Post said.

Randolph's platoon led them up the hill, the Grogs and marines sweating to help the wagon up the incline.

“Damn, they got them ape-men with 'em,” one of the idlers said, pointing with the stained stem of a pipe.

“Prisoners? I thought we were getting a new company,” the other said. “It's not even a sergeant's platoon.
Thunderbolt Ad Hoc Rifles
—bah.”

Word spread through camp and men gathered, hoping to see familiar faces. The Jamaicans, in their strange blue uniforms, excited some comment among the men with dashed hopes.

“Can I speak to a supply officer?” Valentine asked. “I have to feed and billet my men.”

Valentine heard a buzz at the back of the assembled men. General Martinez strode through. There was something of Moses in him after all; the men parted like the Red Sea at his presence. Some removed their hats or wiped their eyeglasses clean as he passed, gorgeous in his braided uniform coat, Van Dyke aligned like a plumb line.

“Welcome back to the Free Territory, Captain Valentine,” Martinez said. “Those rifles your men have; Dallas Armory, aren't they?”

“Yes, sir, we took them off the post at Bern Woods. Those were the ones who ambushed us coming back across the Red.”

“Every man counts here. Every man is important,” the General said, loudly enough for all to hear. “The Grogs are another story. They'll run back to their buddies as soon as they see 'em. Sergeant Rivers, shoot the Grogs.”

A man with stripes sloppily inked on the arm of a long trenchcoat pulled up a shotgun.

“Sir, no!” Valentine said. “They're my men. Let me—”

“Shoot, Sergeant,” Martinez ordered. The gun went off. A Grog fell backward, his chest planted with red buckshot holes, his legs kicking in the air.

Ahn-Kha ran from the back of the column, knocking aside Valentine's old marines as he burst through them.

“David!” Ahn-Kha shouted.

“
Druk
?” the other Grog said, looking from the kicking corpse to the sergeant with the shotgun. Its confused eyes turned to Valentine as the gun fired again.

Everything slowed down. The Grog wavered like a red-wood with its trunk severed, then crashed to the ground. Valentine heard his own heart, louder in his ears than the gunshots, beating in time to Ahn-Kha's footfalls as the Golden One ran to his Grogs with arms outstretched. The smoking shotgun muzzle swiveled to Ahn-Kha as the red shell casing spun through the air. Valentine's hand went to his belt.

Valentine moved. Faster than he had in his encounter with the corporal the other night.

“Rivers,” Valentine said, stepping behind the General with his .45 pressed to the back of Martinez's ear, “you shoot again and I'll kill him, then you.”

“Valentine, have you gone—-awwwk,” Martinez started to say as Valentine grabbed a handful of goldenrod shoulder braid in his left hand and whipped it around the General's neck.

“Everyone calm down,” Valentine said. “I don't want any more shooting. Post, don't draw that.”

“Valentine!” Randolph shouted, pointing his pistol at Valentine's head in turn. “Let him go, right now.”

“Men!” Valentine roared at the assembly. “General Martinez is under arrest for ordering the murder of soldiers of Southern Command. Randolph, you heard me tell him that the Grogs were part of Southern Command, under my authority. Twice. Uniform Code says no soldier of Southern Command can be executed without trial and unanimous verdict of three officers.” Valentine decided not to add that the penalty for summary execution was a bullet in the back of the head.

“Southern Command is gone,” General Martinez gasped. “There's no Uniform Code anymore.”

“Then it's law of the jungle, Martinez. You're not a general, you're just some bastard who killed two of my friends. Last words?” Valentine thumbed back the hammer on the automatic.

“Shoot these bastards! Every one of them!” Martinez yelled.

“Guns down! Guns down! Keep order, there,” a female voice shouted from the crowd.

Valentine looked across the heads of the crowd and saw men being pushed aside, before returning his eyes to the men around him. A stocky woman elbowed her way to the front. No, not stocky; short and powerful. She wore the cleanest uniform Valentine had seen yet in Martinez's camp, her muscular shoulders filling the Southern Command jacket in a way that would do credit to a Labor Regiment veteran fresh from six months of earth moving. Near white-blond hair disappeared up into a fatigue hat. The captain's bars on her collar were joined by an angled crossbar, forming a shortened
Z
.

The crossbar meant she was in the Hunters. Perhaps staff, but part of the organization that encompassed the Wolves, Cats, and Bears.

“You two,” she called to Valentine's marines, “open the bolts on those rifles. Sergeant Rivers, lay down the shotgun.” The men, even those who had never seen her before, obeyed. She looked over the situation, smelled the cordite in the air, and shook her head at the dead Grogs Ahn-Kha knelt beside. She turned to Valentine.

“Captain, you can put up the gun. I saw what happened from up the hill. General Martinez, it's my duty to place you under arrest for murder.”

“I bet you're just loving this, aren't you, Styachowski,” Martinez said. “I wouldn't fall asleep for the next week or so, if I were you. These men know their duty.”

Styachowski's pallid features showed no sign of even hearing the threat, though her face had gone so white that Valentine wondered if she was about to faint at the sight of the bodies. Valentine released Martinez, carefully brought down the gun's hammer, and offered the pistol to Styachowski.

“Keep it, Captain Valentine. You're not under arrest. Neither are you, Rivers,” she called over her shoulder. “But don't count on keeping those stripes, or the shotgun. You'll do your fighting for the next year with a shovel.”

“Men!” Martinez roared. “Handcuff and gag this little bitch. Two-step promotion to any man—”

“The General's no longer in a position to give orders; he's relieved of command pending trial,” Styachowski countershouted. Valentine couldn't help but be impressed by the volume she put into her roar. She coughed as she got her wind back. Perhaps she was ill; that might account for her pallor. “Corporal Juarez, I need you and your men to escort General Martinez to his quarters. Sergeant Calloway, have
Private
Rivers grab a shovel and start digging graves for the Grogs.”

“But Grog bodies go—”

“Soldiers' bodies get buried on Watch Hill. That's where they'll go, right with our men.”

Martinez glared at them from between two nervous soldiers. “Good luck finding three officers to convict, Styachowski. You and this other mutineer here both arrested me. You can't serve as judge and accusing officer. After I'm acquitted I'll try and hang you both for mutiny.”

“Captain Randolph, find a place for Captain Valentine's people, please,” Styachowski said. She nodded at Valentine, then turned and followed the corporal's guard up the hill.

“Post, have the men make litters for the Grogs. I'm sorry, Ahn-Kha,” Valentine said.

Ahn-Kha looked up. Golden Ones cried; in that they were like humans. He held one of each of his Grog's hands in his own. “Nothing seems to change, my David. Always expendable.”

“Ahn-Kha, I'll try and prove you wrong someday. First I want to see some justice done for the Lucky Pair.”

The irony of the nickname tasted bitter, like hemlock in his mouth.

 

Valentine's only look at the trial came when he gave evidence, and he didn't like what he saw. The crisis in command required prompt action. The trial was held, without a preliminary inquiry, the next day in the old brick ranch-style home that served as a guardhouse. Perhaps it had once been a vacation home, or a quiet retirement spot at the end of a winding, mountainside road. The owner liked his architecture low and spacious: wide porches, wide doors, wide windows. Inside, a great brick wall bisected the house into a huge living area and smaller bedrooms, which now served as cells, thanks to the limestone blocks of the walls.

Tables and chairs were arranged, nearly filling the big living room, with the three judges pressed up against the longest wall and facing the prosecution, the defense and a witness chair between the two. The temporary commander of the camp, Colonel Abraham, had excused himself from the trial, as traditionally no officer who stood to replace an accused superior could serve as a judge. The next senior officer in the shattered chain of command was a colonel named Meadows, who presided over the trial. At other times he might have been a good officer, but all Valentine saw was a nervous man seated between Randolph and a lieutenant colonel who smelled, to Valentine's sensitive nose, of marijuana.

Meadows had only one finger to accompany the thumb on his right hand, which clutched a handkerchief used every fifteen seconds on his sweating brow. A throng of men outside, given no duties by officers sympathetic to Martinez, listened through open windows as best they could and added boos and cheers accordingly. Captain Moira Styachowski—Valentine learned her first name when she took his statement—acted as prosecuting officer. She performed admirably under the circumstances, which at one point included a rifle bullet coming through a window and whizzing past her ear. Court adjourned to the floor.

The rifle was eventually found, dropped in a stand of bramble, but not the shooter.

After the missed shot Valentine swore to himself that he'd get his charges out of the camp. This bit of Southern Command was turning into a madhouse of angry, well-armed drunkards. But how far could they get on foot with a pregnant woman, old M'Daw and a boy, with a grudge-holding General following?

Valentine told his story, and answered five questions from Styachowski, stressing that he had told General Martinez at the evening meeting the nature of his command and his use of the Grogs. He tried to keep his voice even as he told of the summary execution of the Grogs, simple but skilled creatures with whom he'd served for a year.

“Did it occur to you, Captain, that General Martinez and his men had been fighting those very creatures for years?” the officer acting as defense counsel asked, leaning down to put his face close to Valentine's, probably in an effort to intimidate. Both the defense counsel and the General had been drinking during the previous night as they talked over the coming trial, according to Styachowski, and his breath made Valentine turn his face toward the triumvirate of judges to avoid the fumes.

“He's been fighting Quislings, too. Does that mean he kills every man who comes into the camp?”

“Answer the question, Valentine,” Randolph said.

“I've fought Grogs myself.”

“That's still not an answer,” Randolph said.

“I took it for granted that he's fought them.”

The defense counsel nodded to Randolph. “Then why didn't you make it clear that they were Southern Command soldiers and not prisoners? Why didn't you give them uniforms?”

“I identified them repeatedly. I didn't have any uniforms to issue, and even if I had, they served as scouts in the Kurian Zone much of the time. That's what made them so useful. Putting them in our uniforms would have detracted from that. Even if they were naked, it shouldn't have made a difference because—”

Loud boos and catcalls came through the windows. “You'll answer the questions asked, Valentine,” Randolph said. “No more. You run on again and I'll have you arrested for contempt.”

The men outside cheered that.

“I'm giving evidence; I'm not an official of the court,” Valentine said. “You don't have that power.”

“Don't go tentpole-lawyering with me,” Randolph said, “or as soon as you get off the stand you'll be brought to a cell.” The men outside cheered him.