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Central Wisconsin, September of the forty-third year of the Kurian Order: North of the road and rail arc connecting Milwaukee with the Twin Cities, Wisconsin under the Kurians has lain fallow Dense forests of pine and oak shelter deer, ed wolves prey on both, and occasionally have to give up their kills to prowling bears and wolverines A few logging ca oak and cedar for use in the south Menominee trappers and hunters also traverse the woods and lakes, traveling down the Wisconsin River to the Dells Country to trade pelts
The Kurian Order begins at the traveled belt linking Milwaukee, Madison, Eau Claire, and St Paul, Minnesota Rich corn and dairy farms still fill the southern half of the state Three Kurian Lords, known as the Madison Triumvirate, control the farms, mines, and lines of communication froloom of their do, they command Reapers from Fond du Lac to Platte-ville, Eau Claire to Beloit
The humans under the teeth of the Kurians endure the New Order, living in the gray area between doing the hood Their family farms are self-controlled, very different from the brutal plantations of the south or the mechanized collectives of Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoion Rumors spread by milk-truck drivers and road crews tell of a new Kurian Lord turning the picturesque village of New Glarus into a hilltop fortress To the fearful smallholders and townspeople of the area, thistheir huht
They ca Green The Wolves could see miles of river valley in either direction A few electrified faruessed to be Tower Hill seemed shunned by the residents, for no active farm lay at its feet, or indeed within miles
They camped a little below the hill, in the ruins of as apparently an outdoor stage in the rown little wooden theater nestled in a kettle in the hillside It reminded him of a fancy version of the simple outdoor platform at one end of the public tent in the Boundary Waters, where Bobby Royce had received a prize shotgun what felt like several lifetiht Were the people in the Freeholds the ones ere crazy? All the loss, all the suffering caused by the never-ending battles A life, of sorts, was possible under the Kurians Perhaps they should weather the stor for so for it He marveled at the adaptability of his race: the Lakes Flotilla, for exa seeds of destruction while turning a profit Then there was Steiner and his enclave, trying to build so new rather than keep alive the old Or the deterunned Southern Co the Kurians to try to enter even as they carried the fight to the Lost Lands Even the little clusters of hidden civilizations like the Boundary Waters contributed to the fight by sile interrupted his rue With the frozen terror of a rabbit under an eagle&039;s shadow, he sensed a Reaper He stepped off the stage and padded downhill to the little cluster of cabins below The Reaper seehted woods Even the crickets ceased their chirping
Valentine entered the Wolves&039; overnight home It was a two-roolass less of an inconvenience The Wolves had stabled the horses in the larger roo the pinkie-and-forefinger hand signal to his comrades that meant Reaper Gonzalez and Harper unsheathed their rifles and checked their parangs
All three concentrated on lowering lifesign, sitting back to back in a little cross-legged circle The horses would give off no h wildlife in the woods to confuse it even if it passed close, as long as they were able to mask their minds properly As he quieted his , Valentine found he could feel the Reaper atop the hill to the west Minutes passed, then an hour, and the Reaper moved off to the west as clammy sweat trickled down Valentine&039;s back
"That was a little too close," Valentine said to his fellow Wolves "Anyone want to move camp, just in case it circles around the hill?"
"Fine idea," Harper agreed "I could walk all night anyway after that"
They decided tothe Reaper as a tornado that you can best dodge by les to its path As Harper readied the horses and Gonzalez hid evidence of their camp, Valentine cautiously walked up Tower Hill, rifle at the ready He read the trail left by heavy bootprints The Reaper had paused for an hour on the overlook Valentine wondered why After a word to Harper, he found an unobstructed knoll above the stage and scanned what parts of the horizon he could
Two or three ht A pair of buildings seemed to be ablaze behind a screen of trees; he could low Perhaps the Hood had a better view from the western crown of Tower Hill, but it was unlike a Reaper to just stand and watch a fire for the draht Valentine wished the winds were favorable enough for him to smell the smoke
He rejoined Gonzalez and Harper
"There&039;s a good-size fire," Valentine explained "I think a barn or a house is going up You want to check it out? It&039;s on this side of the river, so we can get to it easy"
"Do ant to be there?" Harper asked "If it&039;s so from all over It would be just like a Hood to pick soht ere headed south," Gonzalez said
"Yes, eventually But I think this Reaper watched as going on there for a while, for whatever reason It&039;s not like the for the sake of the view I think it&039;s worth checking out"
Harper shrugged "It&039;s your party I don&039;tburn But I don&039;t like the idea ofa decision &039;cause of a prediction about a Reaper&039;s behavior Sounds like a good way to end up drained"
"It&039;ll be okay, as long as the lieutenant&039;s radar is working," Gonzalez suggested
"Hope so," Harper said "Let&039;s get there before the patrols wake up"
Theytheir horses Gonzalez walked out ahead, picking the path, followed by Valentine and Harper, each taking two horses
As they drew close to the fire, Valentine decided the burning buildings were just another abandoned farion where two out of three homesteads were eed to cows
The Wolves tied up the horses near a shallow seasonal strea the rocks They could see the flah the thin-skinned trunks of scrub beech and young oaks They crept up to within fifty feet of the dying fire What was left of four buildings, one obviously a barn, had already collapsed into burning debris Without the daily rains of the past week, the conflagration would have turned into a forest fire
Harper spat cotton "Okay, Lieutenant, here&039;s your fire What now?"
"No fahbors," Valentine observed "Must have been empty These fields sure don&039;t look used I haven&039;t seen anything but a few old fence posts around with the wire stripped off So why&039;s it burning?"
"Maybe a patrol caht with a little arson," Harper mused "That east-west road we crossed yesterday by the river&039;s got to be up there soreed "If so, they used a lot of starter You can sasoline"
Gonzalez and Harper sniffed "Res used it at Cedar Creek They had an old fire truck filled with it Doused souys were holed up in and then lit it"
"I&039;d like to take another look around in daylight," Valentine said "We can wait a few et the horses and find a safe spot to sleep"
Valentine could tell fro some rest was the first sensible plan out of his superior&039;s ht inspection of the ruins told the end of the story but not the beginning While Gonzalez squatted in cover along the road, ready to run like a jackrabbit back to the fire scene at the first sign of a patrol, only a livestock-laden tractor-trailer passed along the old highway, crawling east at a safe fifteenthe potholed road
"This makes no sense," Valentine said to a disinterested Harper "We&039;ve got four burning buildings, or three buildings and a shed, I guess But what are those other three burned spots?"
Valentine indicated the blackened brush, circles of fire twelve to thirty feet in dias on what had once been lawn and garden
"Weird thing number two Look how the house is wrecked The frame&039;s been scattered all to hell, but only ard Like a bunch of dynamite was set off on the east side of it"
Harper shrugged "Maybe the Quislings were training with de"
"Then where&039;s the crater? And the foundation is in good shape; those cinder blocks would be gone if sos They&039;re both broken off three feet up, but the tops are lying toward the house An explosion wouldn&039;t do that Weird thing nuround by the barn"
The men walked over to the ruins of the old barn, next to the blackened coluular furrow, three feet long and al-up divot of earth and grass lay nine feet away, in the direction of the barn "What did this?" asked Valentine "The patrols brought out a backhoe? This was dug out in one clean scoop"
"You got
"And finally, there&039;s no tracks Unless that&039;s why they burned out those patches of the scrub-to cover their tracks, or the marks of the weapons that did this"
Valentine kneeled and sniffed at the charred wood It still retained a faint petroleum or medicinal s," Harper called,swiftly behind the silo, rifle already at his shoulder Valentine threw hi footsteps fro any effort to keep quiet, whoever it was
A edshirt e particularly surprised He removed his baseball cap and wiped his face and neck with a yellow handkerchief What was left of his hair, balding front and back, was a uniforray
"Whoever you are," the man called, "you&039;re sure up early Come out and show yourselves I ain&039;t arnaled Harper to stay concealed Gonzalez had vanished, perhaps into the overgrown drainage ditch next to the road He stood up, half fearing a sniper&039;s bullet
"Goodto you, too," Valentine responded "I&039;h"
"You er," the unknown rustic chided "I saw your buddy behind the silo Since you&039;re not from around here, I&039;ll ask your name, son"
"David, sir I&039;ht say"
The man s rifle hid I don&039;t kno it is in Minnesota, but around here the vas"
"Thanks for the tip We&039;re trying to pass through without attracting attention Do you live around here, sir?"
"All my life My naone I farured it was the old Bauer farht say Ito do"
That could be good or bad for us, Valentine thought "Did anyone live here?"
"No, not since they took over The Bauers all died of the Raving Madness No one&039;s wanted to live here since: it&039;s five miles from nowhere"
"I wonder what started the fire? There&039;s been a lot of rain, but no lightning"
Gustafsen chuckled "I wonder myself I hear from some of the teamsters, there&039;s been a few ht around the tione from bad to worse for a lot of folks around here since then There&039;s been disappearances in almost every town, and I&039;m sure you knohat that means"
"I&039;m surprised you ask questions, Mr Gustafsen Most places that&039;s frowned upon"
"My curiosity is all I&039;ve got left, David" Gustafsen thrust his hands in his pockets, speaking to Valentine while standing side by side with him as was the custom in that part of the country They looked over the wrecked barn and house "I&039;ve lived a full life, considering the circu else from this life, and I&039;m settin&039; my heart on the next"
Valentine liked thethe man to come south with them They had a spare horse, after all, and the Free Territory could always use another faret much formal education They don&039;t like schools But I&039;uns and staying out of sight of the roads means trouble for them So if you boys want to coot with you Maybe you need to spend a couple nights in a bed I&039;ve got some spares I&039;d appreciate the company"
"We appreciate the offer, Mr Gustafsen Really But we&039;ve got to move on east," Valentine lied, just in case "If you could spare a bag of oats for the horses, we&039;d be in your debt, sir I&039;d really like inforh You seeround"
"It beats me as much as it does you, son One old man saw some kind of airship over a fire I don&039;t know exactly where or when; it&039;s a fourth-hand story Like the old blimps you see in pictures He said it ot a theory about where it&039;s co froo within five ot a lot of troops The Co stock all over this part of the state, taking good dairy stock and hogs,to be a hard winter"
"Sounds like You say this new Big Boss is in Glarus?"
"It&039;s New Glarus on a map," Gustafsen corrected
"We&039;d better avoid it," Valentine said, lying again He had to account for the chance that Gustafsen
"Smart of you, son"
Two hours later, Valentine rode up to the other two Wolves, two bags of oats for the horses across the Morgan&039;s broad back
"It ell there?" Gonzalez asked
"Sure He gave me the feed, and I looked around his place He seeet a look at either of you, just in case"
"Are we going to move on now?" Harper asked
"Sort of It see on around Blue Mounds It&039;s about ten miles southeast of here Good hilly country, plenty of cover I want to ride over there and see if we can&039;t get a look at what they&039;re up to"
Harper nodded "Not too h, Lieutenant, begging your pardon Do you have so back to the Ozarks? Got a woman in the family way, and you want to stay out of the Territory for a while or so? We could be halfway to the Mississippi by now We&039;re couriers, not Cats"
"If I knew a Cat in the area, I&039;d ask her to do it for us But so Command ant to know about Especially since whatever this is doesn&039;t make noise You&039;ve seen the little prop jobs the Kurians use on us now and then They&039;re loud We&039;d have heard it And they can fly at night Never heard of a plane or a helicopter doing that nowadays"
"Maybe they&039;re trying to train Harpies to fly in teaht out loud
"Could be Could be just about anything, Gonzo The Kurians like drea to want facts We&039;re all this way anyway When we get back, weabout"
"So what&039;s next on the Lieutenant Valentine tour of southwestern Wisconsin?" Harper chuckled
Valentine consulted his map and compass "A short ride thataway How&039;s your nose thisthe ht about now, sir But it&039;s working well enough"
"I hope so We&039;re going to need it"
You have to hand it to the Kurians, Valentine thought at midday, when they struck the line of fence posts They kno to send a e with easy-to-understand symbols
The Wolves sat their horses before the line of rust-colored pig iron posts Atop each post, at ten-yard distances, a bleached hu line extended into the woods to either side of the to trespassers
"Jesuchristo," Gonzalez whispered
Grimly, Valentine performed some mental arithmetic Gustafsen had said it was death to come within five miles of Blue Mounds Thirty-oddlike five thousand skulls The one immediately in front of them was a child&039;s
Valentine dis his rifle fro to have a look around Sergeant Harper, I want you to stay with the ani west Gonzalez, this is a one-, so I&039;ll leave it up to you"
Gonzalez removed his broad-brimmed hat and scratched the back of his neck "Lieutenant, after I was invoked, I learned the Way froton used to tell me, "Victor, only idiots and heroes volunteer, and you&039;re no hero" But if I stay behind, it&039;llthe Reapers do work" He slid off his horse and began filling his pockets with 30-06 rifle shells fro
"Lieutenant," Harper said, "watch your step now I can see lot of tracks just behind this picket line of theirs I&039; to take the horses down to that ravine we crossed and wait for you Be careful; I&039; to make cold coffee for three, and I don&039;t want any wasted"
"Thanks, Harper No heroics, now You hear anything, you just leave I haven&039;t looked at what&039;s in those s, but it&039;s probably more important than we are"
Valentine and Gonzalez zagging toward three hilltops they could occasionally gliah the woods to cover; he would squat, and the other would move up past the first They used their noses, and when Gonzalez picked up the scent of cattle, Valentine had them alter course to catch up
It was a warh the cuhtened their mood; it would inhibit any Reapers around The cotton-fluff clouds were beginning to cluster and darken at their flat bases; ht be on the way They found the cows, a herd of black-and-white Holsteins escaping the heat under a stand of trees bordering an open meadow
"That&039;s ant," Valentine said "I don&039;t see a herdsht"
"That&039;s ant?" Gonzalez whispered back "What, you want creaet to the herd Keep down in the brush"
They reached the coho gazed at the Wolves indifferently The tail-swishingsideways in a steady cud-chewing rhythm About a thousand flies per cow buzzed aimlessly back and forth
"We need a little ca into a fresh, fly-covered pile of manure His moccasin almost disappeared into the brown mass Gonzalez followed suit
"Is this because of the tracks back at the fence?" Gonzalez asked
"Yes I saw dog prints by the hoofprints Just in case we get tracked The scent of the cows s Step in a few different piles, will you? Ah-ha," Valentine said,milk factories
The cow had raised its tail, sending forth a jet of semi-liquid feces Valentine quickly wiped his foot in tlje body-temperature pool, then put each knee into it "Keep an ear open, Gonzalez It&039;d be great if one of them would take a leak for us"
Valentine&039;s sharp ears picked up his scout , "I don&039;t even want to know,the cows behind, but taking the s to the heaviest woods
"So much for my nose, Val I&039;ve heard of wolves in sheep&039;s clothing, but this is above and beyond"
"Concentrate on your ears then," Valentine suggested
They cut a trail at the base of the hills Tire tracks infor the hills Farther up the slope, they could see aout of the trees, still well below the crown of the hill It looked like a guard tower, but waswalls and a roof
"Maybe it&039;s still under construction," Gonzalez theorized
Theythe tower fro the half-circle, listening all the way for telltale ained the tower base
Concrete anchored the fourthe thirty-foot platform It was built out of heavy steel I-bea up It was new enough that scars in the earth frorown but not yet eroded away
"What the hell kind of a lookout post is this?" Valentine wondered "That&039;s a lot of steel to hold up nothing"
Gonzalez knelt in the dirt beneath the structure "Look here, sir These tracks: sh for a wouess," Gonzalez said
Valentine&039;s spine bled electric tingles A Reaper stands on that platforuard? What the hell is so valuable that the Kurians are using Reapers as sentries?
He looked at the cross-braces He ers held out Of course, a Hood would have no problee to a hu to cliet a look at the top Maybe there&039;s son of what it&039;s used for up there"
"Sir," Gonzalez said "I wouldn&039;t advise that Listen"
Valentine hardened his ears and heard thunderous hoof-beats echoing from somewhere over the hill A lot of hoof-beats Valentine suspected that these riders would not be scared off by the symbols carved into the butt of his rifle
He looked at Gonzalez,his scout&039;s alarmed eyes, and nodded