"And if I am?"
"Will you at least let me go in first and shave the odds?"
Of course his orders said nothing about rounding up strays. He had to consider that if it went bad, his wounded could end up driven to the Kurians south or north of here.
The rewards in return for the risk didn't amount to much. The people who had the guts and resources and luck to make it to the Freehold often needed years of education before they were more of a blessing than a burden. Without someone to schedule every moment of their lives, they wandered like lost sheep or were taken advantage of by hucksters and con artists.
Their kids, however, took to the Free Territory like famished horses loosed in good pasture. The ones with memories of the Kurian Zone often made the best fighters in the Cause. They accepted the discipline and regulation and privation without complaint. They soon learned that the Quisling thugs who'd robbed and bullied everyone under their authority ran like gun-shy rabbits when put up against trained soldiers. Even more, the Reapers, instead of being invulnerable avatars of the local dread god-king, could in fact be hunted down and dynamited out of their holes and killed.
Colonel Seng, who'd led Javelin across Kentucky in the most skillful march into enemy territory Valentine had ever experienced, had once been one of those children.
The Free Republics could use another Colonel Seng.
But twelve. Plus two kids and the women.
He couldn't do twelve. Not all at once, not without running too many risks of a mistake. Duvalier might be able to, but it would take her all night in her methodical manner. But perhaps he could stampede them.
Two paces away, Alessa Duvalier lay swathed in her big overcoat with her sagging, flapped hunter's cap pulled down low. You had to look twice to be sure there was a person there rather than an old, lightning-struck stump.
Her eyes sparkled red, alive at the thought of cutting a few throats. Duvalier had a personal grudge against all Quislings. She'd selected Valentine years ago to become a Cat, tutoring him in sabotage, sniping, assassination, intelligence gathering-all the variegated duties that covert operations in the Kurian Zone entailed. They still bore faint, matching scars on their palms that sealed the odd bond between them, a strange blend of mutual respect and an almost filial blend of conflicting emotions.
"They'll send out scouting parties in the morning, sure as sunrise," Duvalier said.
"Bound to cut the legworm trail," Valentine agreed.
"We could nail the scouts headed our way."
"Which might draw more trouble, if this is just an advance party of a bigger operation," Valentine said. "Besides, it won't help those poor souls in the trailers."
Duvalier's mouth opened and shut again. "Let's skip the usual argument. I know you'll just pull rank anyway."
Valentine answered by stripping off his uniform tunic as she muttered something about crusades and hallelujahs and saving souls.
"We'll need someone good with a rifle," Valentine said. "Just in case they don't bite."
"That old worm driver, Brian something-or-other-he has that scoped Accuracy Suppressed. He hit a deer on the run with it. His kid's always carrying it around."
They ended up bringing the son-his name was Dorian-forward. The father came along as spotter. Dorian's father claimed the boy was just as good a shot, with better eyes. He'd already seen action that summer and been blooded at what in better times would be called the tender age of fifteen at the river crossing where Valentine had taken out a company of Moondaggers with a handful of Bears. Dorian's swagger showed that he considered himself a hardened veteran.
Valentine could just remember what it was to be that young.
He outlined the plan and had Dorian repeat it back to him.
"Steady now, Dorian. Don't pull that trigger unless they throw down on me, or I signal. And the signal is . . . ?"
"You hit the dirt," Dorian said, even though they'd already been through it once.
"Remember to check your target. I'll be moving around a lot in there. Can do?"
"Can do, Major Valentine."
It felt good to run. Valentine enjoyed losing himself in his body. Idleness left his mind free to visit the nightmare graveyard of his experiences, or calculate the chances of living to see another Christmas or summer solstice, or think about the look on the old man with the goatee's face when his fellow prisoner ripped the heel of bread right out of his hand. So he escaped by chopping wood, loping along at the old easy Wolf cadence-even the rhythmic thrust of lovemaking.
Though the last left him feeling vaguely guilty for not being attentive enough to the woman.
Since they'd said good-bye to the Bulletproof legworm clan after the battle across the river from Evansville, he had nothing but memories of Tikka's vigorous sensuality and the musky smell of her skin. They could be revisited at his leisure. Now he had work to do.
He had the sense that their affair was over, her curiosity, or erotic interest, or-less flatteringly-the desire to cement good relations between Southern Command's forces and her clan being satisfied.