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On the banks of the Lake o&039; the Cherokees: Foxtrot Coons, livestock, and a s down from the hills into what reles fish beneath the ruined arches, lingering along the flight paths most have already followed north up the Mississippi Valley

In this border country, the Wolves of Southern Co quickly here and there to survey the countryside and striking at prey sh to take Their duty is to scout the Kurian 2x>ne, pick up infor threat to the human settlements in the hills and dales of the Ozark Freehold Similar military camps lie scattered in the foothills of the Ozarks and Ouachitas throughout Missouri, the eastern edge of Oklaho broods the Night of the Kurian Order

The Kurians on the other side of no-man&039;s-land wait for a chance, perhaps soulf the Free Territory and put an end to one of the last bastions of huratulations, Valentine," Captain Beck said, e from his tent to receive the report of his tired lieutenant "I hear you got four Reapers You&039;re a credit to the Regiht as a telephone pole, sh clenched teeth

The young lieutenant shook the proffered hand "Three, sir The fourth was a little burned, but got away"

"Stafford said he was blinded That&039;s one less Reaper to worry about, inabout a Reaper until its corpse quit twitching

"Could be, sir," Valentine said,neck He was so tired, he had a hard tihts, but he had to snap to for this particular superior, fatigue or no Captain Beck had a reputation as apro officer after the Battle of Hazlett in the suh training and once up to strength requested a forward posting

"I got Stafford&039;s report on the action at the Rigyard," he said, inviting Valentine into his tepee with an outstretched arars Socks and underwear drying on a line added a hint of mustiness "Hoas the trip back?"

Valentine collected his thoughts "It rained after Stafford drove off Slowed us up The next day I sent out details to start so across the flatlands for the Missouri border We spotted a couple of patrol toward evening, one on horse and one in a truck We lay low and cold-camped The next-"

Beck held up a hand "What&039;s that, Lieutenant? A single truck? Sounds like a good opportunity for prisoners"

"It had a radio antenna Even froe We had been lucky with casualties I didn&039;t want to press it"

Beck frowned "I&039;d liketo do to the eneet done to them Your return would be easier if the Territorials were too scared of losing patrols to send the them worse than the Reapers, sir"

The captain clucked his tongue against his teeth, and the tepee seeht have handled it, had I been there"

"Thank you, sir The next day, we really put on sohtfall we passed the old interstate When did you get back, sir?"

"Two days ago,We scouted that refinery outside Tulsa It&039;s fortified, but I think the whole Coarrison out soo, he had learned the best way to change his captain&039;s mind was to make any objections he had seem like Beck&039;s own "Certainly, sir While we&039;re trying to draw the garrison out, what orders would you give if a flying column co soulars as a reserve That or have the help of a really good Cat, sir"

"Getting Southern Co like that isn&039;t so easy to do," Beck said with a knowing chuckle "That&039;s enough for now Take tonight off, get soive me your full report tomorrow"

"Has anyone talked to the four Okies Stafford brought out, sir?"

"Stafford got their vitals None of them were military Feel free to interview the Nice work out there, Valentine Dismissed"

Valentine saluted "Sir," he said quietly, and backed out of Beck&039;s tepee

A night off Exhausted froht days in the Kurian Zone, he longed to fall into his cot, into oblivion A hot bath first was te, but the platoon needed to be checked over, and he wanted to have a ith the liberated prisoners before they were taken east into the Ozarks

He found Stafford with the platoon, engaged in an impromptu celebration for Poulos and his new bride So, and Freeenerous portions into the cluster of wooden cups held under the spout The s were pieces of off-duty artistry: Free Territory hardwoods had been carved into wolf heads and fox ears Some had handles chiseled to resemble curved tails Even the rawest recruit in Foxtrot Co

"Stafford, a word please" Valentine had to raise his voice over the ribald jests being directed at Poulos and his new bride

The ruddy-skinned platoon sergeant left the guffaws and joined Valentine They watched the festivities froh hie after hard duty The 120 miles covered on foot in the last seven days qualified

"Poulos and the Meyer girl tied the knot, Gator?" Valentine asked

"This ot heron now"

"It&039;ll be a story for their grandkids Hope nobody takes the hooch too close to the fire; I think Freeed flavor"

Gator snorted, and Valentine returned to business "I looked over your report on the drive back Anything happen that you didn&039;t want to put on paper?"

"No, sir Except that I was cutting the engines about every fifteenaround, setting off firecrackers It&039;s a wonder I didn&039;t get every Territorial for fifty miles around me But all ere a couple of deer we flushed Ca eyes and twelve-foot ju again" His left eye twitched at the irl&039;s ht out Where can I find them?"

"The captain had to deal with that e pulled in Since they were your responsibility, he put thee about picking up strays Lieutenant Caltagirone is still out on patrol with a chunk of third platoon, so Beck figured he uy, though-the one with the really long hair-you won&039;t get much out of hi that makes much sense the whole ride"

"I don&039;t even remember what they look like Can I borrow you for a quick introduction?"

"Followof Company tepees at the center of the cah the flap of the tepee he shared with Lieutenant Caltagirone The refugees were relaxing Their faces had been washed, and plates that looked as though they&039;d been licked clean were stacked by a washbasin

"Here&039;s the lieutenant; just a few more questions for you," Stafford said

Valentine looked longingly at his cot What was left of last night&039;s charcoal was cold gray ash at the center Caltagirone&039;s cot and a tiny folding table paired up with a rickety stool co wood lattice stood behind the beds; spare equip to the Foxtrot&039;s lieutenants hung from hooks

As the prisoners sat up, Valentine walked over to his paperwork pouch bearing his stenciled na white coith two black eyes beneath the letters, a reference to his nickname, "the Ghost"-and extracted a clipboard A new letter was clipped to the top of the assorted fornized Molly&039;s hand by the deliberately printed black inscription, like a schoolchild&039;s Temptation to let the questions wait in order to peruse its contents almost overwhelmed hie that a letter awaited hi over the little caave the na celebration- and then returned to the platoon

Their stories were the usual sad tale of refugees froanda stories about life in the Ozarks-that a Rule Eleven existed conde anyone who ever cooperated with the

Kurians to either execution or being worked to death, and further, Free Territory soldiers were allowed to rape any woman they wished-Valentine only shook his head and returned to the routine questions He had taken hundreds of stateees, and the picture was always the same bleak snapshot: a hard, bland life of labor until the inevitable end in the draining embrace of a Reaper

Only one statement stood out, and that was from the man Stafford had described as "cracked" He was a save him a wizened look His name was Whitey Cooper, no doubt a reference to his snohite hair He wore blue-striped ticking, a shirt in the last stages of decay Not a button reone, so his bony forearth It was trying work getting anything out of hied to learn that he worked in the main rail yards of Oklahoma City

"And for better than thirty years, junior," Cooper pointed out, stabbing one of those fingers at Valentine as if threatening hie its tune, not me So many ca out their lives before flying south I wasn&039;t set to fly, though, not by a long shot"

"No?" Valentine said, having given up the fight to lance or two exchanged with the others He wondered what Molly had written, and if her mother&039;s health had improved

"Naas quiet as a broke television If you&039;re up to your neck in shit, don&039;tthese years Till them Nazis showed up on their way north and spoilt it with that big train They et theirs Now, I know ot fingers I know the Nazis got beat once, and we&039;ll beat&039;es "Nazis?"

"That&039;s the proble Yeah, Nazis, Mr Lootenan They were the bad guys way back when the world had the old-time black-and-white life"

"How do you know they were Nazis?" he asked, picking up his pencil

"First I thought they were just train men like me Most of&039;em weren&039;t much to look at Thin and sickly kinda, so I assumed they was just railroad un to yer head" Railway Local Union Nine Eest I&039;ve ever seen, not by a long shot, but ar coffee when it&039;s stopped between, relaxing between the cars on break like So I figure I grab a cup while it&039;s hot and say howdy, &039;cause I had a spare cigarette to trade I cliet all exhilarated Haul eneral starts giving ot thirty years&039; worth of work sta with hi, as if a bunch of closed boxcars are anything worth spying on Everyone&039;s all saluting and calling hi Then they takeme with this electric stick Oh eneral, he was in charge of the Nazis? Did you see a name, perhaps on his uniform?"

Cooper winced, as if the memory slapped him "Oldish, sir Not oldish and healthy, oldish and dried out, skin like a wasp nest in winter Thick, wiry gray hair, cut real luscious &039;n&039; full Little shorter&039;n me, and I&039;over Had a voice like an old wagon running on a gravel road I&039;ve never heard a young man talk like that Old and squeaky and tired"

"Could you tell from the way they talked where they were froain, keeping his voice casual

"No, if he said it, I forgot"

"What about his men-you said they were thin and sickly?"

"Jest the ones hanging round the wagons The ones that grabbed h-quality iron froorilla-letooth varmints It was them that held me when they started in on me"

"I still don&039;t see how they were Nazis," Valentine said

The ot a good record here Check my book Me a spy?" Cooper trailed off

Valentine switched tactics "I think you&039;re wrong, Mr Cooper You probably justyou"

"I&039;et the opportunity How could I tell? The flag, like they had by the s in the caboose behind the General Honcho&039;s desk Wore it proud, the bastards You&039;ll show&039;eh, like you did at the house"

Valentine wrote so on his clipboard "Like this?"

"That&039;s it, Mr Lootenan That&039;s it I bet you beat on theht?"

Valentine just nodded, to hi down at the clipboard He had seen that design before, here and there, and wherever he had encountered it, there had been trouble

Written in pencil on the slightly yellow paper was the backwards swastika he&039;d heard called "the Twisted Cross"

"You&039;re sure you don&039;t knohere they come from?"

"Naw Why you need to know that?"

"You said we had to beat them"

"Course you will, Mr Lootenan Of course But you don&039;t have to go looking for the for you"

It took Valentine a moment to come up with, "How can you be sure of that?"

"All suoin&039; in Labor and ed I was supposed to second a section chief A new north-south running Dallas-Tulsa-Kansas City, and after that then three branch lines"

"Branch lines? Where?"

"Pointing like a pitchfork right at these hills

Valentine ca three other Wolves who had given up their tepee to Poulos and his new bride As the final earthy taunts and wedding-night stories died down, Valentine reread Molly&039;s letter by the cold light of the rising moon

January 18, 2067

Dear David,

I hope this letter finds you well and doesn&039;t take too long-you&039;d think they could find your unit in less than a ood the winter passed with hardly any sickness but the food is all starting to taste the sah I shouldn&039;t complain as I am certain it is worse for you I read your last letter out loud during Sunday Services and received s and ishes to pass on to you that are too nu to send you as soon as he can find one of the Wolves passing through the area since he doesn&039;t trust the post with it-the package is a box or trunk of so on it all winter and madeas he is helping me with this letter! As you know I aht in that part of Wisconsin where wefrom Frat? I think he&039;s still an Aspirant down by Louisiana, but you all move around so much my information is always out of date I am told the mail is even slower to him and just collects until he can return to his camp

Graf has been reco to askthe village but Moh nohere she can take over a lot of the chores and the Hudson brothers help out with the hardest Myto do with veterinary work for the town livestock, if soet theer place in the Village, there&039;s talk of hiot here the town gave hilets and soood milkers Of course, in a way our start here is because of you I should just say it, e everything to you: getting out of the badness in Wisconsin and everything that happened in Chicago

Your tetters are very cheery and polite in the way you ask about Graf But you always are very casual and polite when you are upset David, you&039;re one of the finest men I&039;ve ever known I still love you in a way, but a different way than I feel about Graf I think you have a Purpose I knoe talked that our futures oven together at one ti in me associates all the badness back there with you and every ti, before Chicago our time onderful, and precious, but I&039;ve sealed up everything that happened with Chicago, it&039;s kind of like a htmare, not very clear You were so patient with me all that winter, God did I even talk at all while ere in Minnesota? I think you need to be free ofto become (as you are all bound up with the Lifeweavers and Mr Bourne says it is a hard way and the choice to follow them doesn&039;t make for a normal life) I need to be free of you to start here with a clean slate We tried last spring and it was just bad, I was cold-God it was the last thing you deserve!- and you were distracted

The way things are now is for the best, I&039;reat that I have a man like Graf and those words meant a lot to me and I hope they weren&039;t painful to write I suppose we both have h, you will always have a ho no matter what happens to you You&039;ve been uide, and now I hold you as a dear brother in a Very Special Place in my heart I look toward your next letter, and pray that your duties will allow you to visit soon

Yours truly and always,

Molly

Molly was a bright young woht about the He played a mental slide show of the Molly he had known: from when he first reat personal risk froo to rescue her fro official They&039;d escaped by ship to the Minnesota shore, near where Valentine had been born and grew up, and stayed a season at his adoptive father&039;s house

Valentine and the old priest sat up night after night, discussing what he&039;d learned of the Kurians It was the Padre who&039;d first taught him about ancient civil war that divided the Lifeweavers and led to the Kurian Lords, who- through their vaies that sustained their endless lives They&039;d been thrown off Earth long ago, the interstellar gateways sealed and destroyed, but they&039;d coain in 2022, and won

Valentine made no attempt to renew the intimacy that had briefly existed between hi everyone Each night he read to Molly by the light of a single candle out of the Padre&039;s collection of old books Books that had beco They&039;d taken him out of his misery, and he&039;d hoped they could do the sa, Valentine was deterh he had no idea if the Carlsons had even successfully escaped to the Ozarks with his fellow Wolf, Gonzalez

Molly strengthened and blosso sunshine of the north Valentine had a good nose for trouble, and skirted wide around areas controlled by the Quisling servants of the Kurians They reached the outskirts of Southern Coht up to Molly&039;s fa the old roads and trails up from St Louis That reunion on the soil of the Ozark Free Territory was perhaps the proudest ain had been fulfilled, he and Molly renewed their inti abandon

But it was not the saer of their situation in Wisconsin was absent, and Valentine felt the pull of duty He had been postedof his safe return to the Ozarks, Gonzalez and a few other Wolves of Zulu Company showed up to welcome him back He settled the family with old friends in the little borderland settle in northern Arkansas near the Saint Francis River and returned to his duties

It was a frustrating return Southern Coot, his report on the mysterious Kurian operations in the hills of southern Wisconsin he and Gonzalez had stued their shoulders at Valentine&039;s suggestion of a new organization under a reversed-swastika symbol Valentine had heard called the Twisted Cross

Zulu Coned to Captain Beck and Foxtrot Company, mostly freshly invoked Wolves who had never seen a live Reaper and knew Grogs-the variegated, seation of humanity-only by their oversize footprints

Constant training drained him, and he found it ied letters less and less frequently Molly was young and beautiful, and soon found herself under the attentions of a sergeant in the regulars, the well-turned-out Guards who formed the es of jealousy vied with genuine hope for her happiness on the unstable es for her

Valentine shifted his weight on the hard boards of the wagon, causing the springs to squeak in coht led to a dead end He returned to present probles He still knew little of the Twisted Cross Only that its members were human, at least some of them, and that they were objects of dread in the Kurian Zone and on its borders He had briefly arden of unholy entertain for Molly A man who talked like a soldier and acted like a Reaper, even to the extent that he thirsted for blood And whoever they were, they were now so the Free Territory froht, he finally slept Above his hard bed, the stars whirled away in the bright clear night

"Grogs, Mr Valentine Hundreds of&039;e hard," a pubescent voice intruded on Valentine&039;s deep predawn slumber

Valentine woke like a startled ani his shoulder It was Toe Aspirants who traveled with the Wolves and perfor their ranks The youth alon Captain Beck had taken Nishino, the brightest of Foxtrot&039;s teens, under his wing and used hier

"Whose are they?"

Nishino looked puzzled at the question He&039;d never served down south, where Governer Steiner had his unique and independent enclave of hus So far, Steiner had never let his militias off his lands, which formed a buffer in the south between Kurian Louisiana and the Free Territory Valentine had always hoped to hear of closer cooperation-he&039;d played a small part in that alliance his first year as a Wolf

"Don&039;t know, sir They&039;re co out of Oklahoma"

"Are we supposed to sound asse his ears play across the ca

"The captain asks that you have your platoon turn out with full weapons and equipment, and you&039;re to report to his tent, sir," Nishino reported

"Thank you, son Please walk, walk mind you, back to the captain and tell hi in the dark is a good way to turn an ankle, or have a sentry put a bullet into you Take it easy, boy" "Sir," the boy said, showing his best salute, and turned neatly to begin a stiff-spined walk back to the captain&039;s tent Valentine tried to remember if he&039;d acted like that when he&039;d first joined the Cause at seventeen The Wolves sharing the wagon with Valentine still lay in their bedrolls The pose was deceptive-Valentine had seen them lay hands on their rifles at the first hint of action in the air

Valentine pulled on his boots "Benning, find Sergeant Stafford, please Tell hiether, aet the draft anions Thank you"

He hopped out of the wagon as the h his facade Whenever their young lieutenant spoke in that crisp, politely affected manner, action was in the air

Valentine walked to the co the clatter and curses in the night air as the canificant The battle-bred warriors of the Kurians were rare in Oklahoht be they&039;d been brought down from Northern Missouri, and that could mean an attempt to thrust into the vitals of the Free Territory Valentine ticked off the possibilities in his brain: a raid, an atteion, or perhaps a thrust northeast to link up with others pushing south into Missouri, catching the forces and populace in that corner of the Free Territory in a rinder Or most likely of all, it was a rushed-up retribution for the recent raid by Foxtrot Company If that was the case, the Wolves could do what they did best: skirs on a chase until they could be decoyed into the Ozarks and cut off

Captain Beck stood outside his tepee in the pink dawn, his hands behind him in the at-ease position

Valentine came up beside him "What&039;s the situation, sir?"

"Pickets spotted the Grogs crossing the lake about ht have picked the up in their area They turned south right away,the banks of the river I sent the camp squad out to keep an eye on them- they&039;re freshest They&039;ll bushwhack any scouts if they can That&039;ll slow the Grogs soth?"

"Probably won&039;t have any idea of nuworms-it&039;s how they crossed the river so quick and easy Pickets said they spotted harpies above the treetops No sign of theination"

"Co to raid into the Ozarks?"

"They&039;re after us, no doubt about that Maybe some Kurian is down to his last Reaper thanks to you, Valentine We&039;re going to ht up to us"

"How&039;s that, sir?" Valentine asked, adding a silent prayer It wasn&039;t what he thought

"I&039;ve already tele&039;d to Decatur for reinforcements and put the sick and wounded in the trucks you captured Oh, and the children There&039;s a cavalry regis have got to be planning to burn this ca back toward the Free Territory They&039;ve moved fast, so it can&039;t be a well-planned assault If we pull up onto Little Timber Hill, we can hold out there for days It would take s have in Missouri to blast us out of those rocks" Beck reached for the waxed linen packet in which he kept his cigars With his usual courtesy, he offered one Valentine shook his head, gathering the right words

"Sir, there&039;s nothing here worth fighting for There aren&039;t any of our farons and barrels of pork If they follow us toward Fort Set back alive"

Beck&039;s dark brows dueled like bighorn sheep "Dammit, Valentine, you kno I feel about that kind of crap Until we startthose Jaspersto keep pushing into us whenever they feel like it Besides, you&039;re forgetting Lt Caltagirone He&039;s still out with his short platoon I don&039;t want his"

"I know that sir, and I agree But we&039;re Wolves, not Guards Even a couple of our men are worthin that colu I&039;d throay men&039;s lives? Because if you are-"

"No, sir, certainly not, sir"

"The toughest decisions are alhere to fight I appreciate you speaking your e, too Just because we disagree, it won&039;t be held against you"

He waited, as if expecting a thank-you, then continued "Soet it, cos who are about to get their noses lopped off And even if it isn&039;t, we can hold the I held outside Hazlett, Val? Five days By the second day ere low on auns were empty"

Valentine had heard the story of those five days several ti Wolves of Foxtrot Company did not match the commander&039;s account exactly, but this was not the ti that up

"Your orders, sir?"

"Your platoon is going to haul as many supplies as possible up Little Tiot trees down all around the hill, we&039;ve been working on the fortifications since we got here Fill a couple wagons, triple-teaet them up that hill to Rocky Crown Water&039;s not a problem this tirenade we have Drive the livestock up, and make a pen"

Valentine took the orders like bitter medicine Now he had to decide how to carry the pickets or no, and with daylight they would move even faster

"Yes, sir"

"Good Clear the camp as soon as you can"

"And the spouses?"

"Soet up the hill, too Any further questions, Valentine?"

"No, sir," Valentine said, already wondering if he could even get the wagons up that slope, triple-tea now as the Wolves gathered their weapons and equipment Valentine returned to his platoon to find Stafford sitting on top of a wagon, issuing orders and equip men

"We&039;ll be ready to pull out in fifteenthe wagons, some of the woood time, probably hit the outskirts of the Territory by sundown"

"Good work, Staff, but we&039;re not leaving We have to hitch up soet the ammo and food up to the redoubt"

Stafford&039;s face fell, lacking only an audible thud "The captain wants to fight it out?"

Valentine hid his own s with his best airy ss to flush us The Guards are already on their way if it&039;s not And besides, Caltagirone is still out with his s Get thein their stoons, fill them with food and bullets, and haul up that trail Minutes count, okay, Sergeant?"

"Yes, Lieutenant"

Gator turned and began bellowing orders Poulos&039;s new bride, her mother, and a few of the other ca out ersatz coffee and the &039;s biscuits Thefood into their et the supplies up that hill The sht saliva to Valentine&039;sfire A seven-year-old girl, the daughter of Corporal Hart of First Platoon, scuttled past hi a chicken

Valentine swore under his breath She should have left with the trucks Hart and his wife ether despite the risks The girl got the chicken and hurried off to the coops Valentine tried to put her out of hisafter her

By the ti with bacon fat and a pair of still-sputtering strips of meat, the platoon had the outlines of a plan Stafford and the other NCOs decided to run tagons, one from the camp to the base of the steep hill that served as the Coht loads up the hill Valentine watched the first group of men move off with axes and two small horses toward the hill They would improve the trail and check for deadfalls, then improvise a corral at the rocky top of the hill The ca a few necessities and driving the goats, geese, and cows that made up the Company&039;s livestock

In the early hours of thebut the ordnance to Stafford He personally supervised digging up the Corenades and ammunition Some of the explosives used black powder, and he wanted to make sure that in the rush, the volatile mixture was not mishandled

"Mr Valentine," said O&039;Neil, uncovering the last case of grenades froimme half an hour, and I&039;ll set a little booby trap here We leave behind a case, and the first Grog tries to shift it gets blowed into pieces that wouldn&039;t fill a spoon"

"If we had time, we&039;d leave surprises everywhere, O&039;Neil But they&039;re going to be here anyAs Valentine walked behind the load of aon bed as it ascended the first gentle slope toward the redoubt, a running Wolf broke cover from the tree line to the north Valentine watched hi for the new co, s are on their way We want to have this load to shoot at them, not the other way round"

O&039;Neil quickened the pace of the four horses, and the last of Valentine&039;s platoon soon disappeared into the trees at the base of the hill Stafford waited there, with more horses ready to be hitched to the rest

"Everything and everyone&039;s up at the top, sir The corral took no doing at all-there&039;s a little hollow in the rocks that we just closed off at one end The captain&039;s going to use the other wagon to block the trail once we make it to the crest"

"Good work, Staff Let&039;s get a man at each wheel with a rock, ready to brace it up if the horses need a breather Get a few hides between the crates, just in case the load shifts I don&039;t think even a bad bounce would set it off, but better safe than dead Where&039;s the platoon supposed to be once we get up?"

"We&039;re to form a reserve He wants the dependents armed, too The rest of the platoon will cover the south and the saddle to the east where it joins the rest of the hills First platoon is going to be on the ures if they&039;ll coentle"

The newly double-teaon ascended the hill, with men ready to prop the wheels with rocks when the horses could no longer take the strain Even this, the "gentie" part of the hill, had an exhausting slope to the grade, running way up Litde Ti ramp

A little more than halfway up the hill, they came upon the fortifications Whatever Valentine&039;s other disagree and execution of the redoubt Trees were felled at the crest of the steepest part of the slope, pointing outith their branches shorn and sharpened into abatis Earth-and-wood fortifications, cos in s wanted Little Timber, they would pay a steep price, as steep as the hill the wagon now climbed, exacted by the marksmen of Foxtrot Company Valentine put himself in the enemy&039;s canoelike sandals at the base of the hill Hoould he go about the assault to ht like cornered rats, but Valentine disliked being in a corner in the first place The Wolves lived and foughtwhere and when the Kurians eak and disappearing once the enes battle, but what could he do in the face of orders?

"C&039;ainst the wagon when the horses began to shift sideways in exhaustion His Wolves hurled theon where they could get a grip The wagon and roaned on up

At the line of fortifications, Valentine braced up the wheels and passed out cases of ammunition and hand-bombs The slope from here was easier to the crown of the hill A little above them a small boulder-strewn spur off the crown nated co down the slope toward the trail

"Keep itto talk to the captain for a h rooted a the rocks

"Nice work, Lieutenant That was a big load at last"

"The a up, sir What&039;s the word on the Grogs?"

Beck looked grim "It&039;s in the hundreds, at least The scouts worms There&039;re men with the regulars or just the supply train"

"Grogs don&039;t move with much in the way of supplies I think they eat rocks if it comes to it"

"Valentine, you and I both knohat they eat Let&039;s just try to stay off thethat ravine to the south and the saddle where the rocky crown meets the other hills Keep your best squad as a reserve, back up wherever they decide to hit us first I&039;ve put a squad in reserve, too, and we&039;re going to shift theuns will make the difference wherever they come"

Valentine did some quick mental math Beck&039;s deployment put a man every ten feet or so in the tree-trunk fortifications on the crest of the little hill Maybe a little more to the west and on the saddle, a few less at the steep ravine on the south side Lt Caltagirone and his twenty odsend, if they would just return The two flying squads would be very busy

He jogged up to the crown of the hill, a ept expanse of rocks on the heavily ti from the trees like a callused spot on an ox&039;s back Stunted speci the rocks, in what looked like just a few handfuls of dirt A goat bleated from a little depression in the hill&039;s crown The stock drank froht in a basinlike depression The ca seemed to be in place here He found a irl-or rather Mrs Poulos now, the baby still in her ars overran the hilltop He turned to thetheir positions at the breastworks

Sergeant Stafford had already arrayed thethem painfully thin at the ravine to the south, and clustered theroups on the saddle that connected Little Tie to the east Beyond that line of hills to the southeast stood the co mass of the Ozarks, blue in the distance

Valentine eant&039;s defenses He had theover appropriately shaped saplings The Grogs were reets to absorb potshots during an assault ht save the life of a real soldier

The Wolves took tothem Fat Tom, the Hunchback, Mr Greenshoots, and other colorfulfixed atop the faux Wolves, shots echoed up from the west side of the hill

"Looks like they found us," Valentine announced, seeing his ents Let them shoot, and mark them Then shoot when they reload their pieces Or when they psyche theht the urge to go to the other side of the hill for a glimpse of the opposition His place ith his e of the reserve squad at the top That&039;ll be the final line if this one goes Get the ammunition in there with the stock, and fill every bucket and canteen ater Understand?"

"Ahead of you, sir, at least as far as the aet first squad to work up there Whistle if there&039;s trouble?"

Valentine extracted a little silver whistle on a lanyard froht; the whistle had belonged to Valentine&039;s predecessor It would have been buried with hi the body on to the field ht Work the ure raced up the hill from Beck&039;s spur It was the Aspirant, Nishino

Valentine checked his carbine and pistol while he waited for the racing teen