Tale of the Thunderbolt (Vampire Earth #3) - Page 8

Santo Domingo, May: The Kurians outside the rebel territories of the Roots divide their subjects into a simple caste system. A young Santo Domingan is born into life as a peon, engineer, artisan, or soldier. The peons are the most numerous. They are the laborers who work the plantations, on the docks, in the fields, and within the mines. These establishments are known as stations, named for what they produce and for the man in charge. "Sugar Sanchez" would be a cane-sugar farm managed by a man (or infrequently a woman) named Sanchez. Peons are born, live, and die on the same plantation, though women are sometimes married off to other stations. The engineers are hardly worthy of the title-they are construction laborers responsible for maintenance of roads and buildings who enjoy a more varied life than the peons. Artisans can be found in the workshops doing tasks which take more expertise, enjoying enough comforts in exchange for their skill that they could be called "bourgeoisie" by the French-speaking Haitians. And finally, there are the soldiers, many of whom live in hope of distinguishing themselves in such a way that they are promoted to "Station Manager."

Being born into a class does not mean you stay there. An unenthusiastic soldier will find himself in a peon's barracks at a nickel mine if he makes an enemy of one of his officers. A young, vigorous peon may get into the soldier class through superior performance at the "trials," yearly con-

tests held at some larger stations or towns by the Kurian Order's recruiters.

Geography plays a role in Santo Domingo's organization. The Kur control the island from the coastal cities, and as a traveler goes inland, the visitor will see less and less evidence of organization. The Cordillera Central, the Caribbean's highest mountains, are comparatively uninhabited save for runaway peons and hunting Reapers. And the roadwatchers.

After the death of his parents and siblings, when Valentine filled the hours of youth in the Padre's library, he read a book about the space program. Though the astronauts were deservedly the heroes of the story, Mission Control back in Houston was the real nerve center of the operation.

As he stood at the roadside stop of La Miel at the unofficial border, a month's worth of planning came to a climax. He felt like the NASA flight director, receiving last-minute reports from the Haitians, the Thunderbolt's crew, and even Santo Domingans before setting off.

He started off with Post, in charge of the core group of Thunderbolt marines and sailors who would use the machine guns brought off the ship.

"How are we doing with the ammunition for the belt-feds?" Valentine asked.

"I just finished checking it. The Haitians couldn't come up with any, or so they said. Leaving a supply on the ship, we've got a few thousand rounds, enough for one good fight unless we can pick some up."

"Let's have an 'alpha' gun and a 'beta' gun, then. Put the best gunner, by which I mean the least trigger-happy, on alpha. We'll just leave one belt with the beta team. The marines?"

"They're in good shape, plenty of rifle ammunition. I don't think anyone's got under sixty rounds-most have decided to carry over a hundred. About the same with the pack animals."

"Two canteens a man, at least, right?" Valentine asked.

"Yeah, some of the guys are carrying four."

"So far I haven't seen water being a problem, but we'll be moving fast. How are those pikes you came up with doing?"

Post shuffled his feet and looked down, but Valentine knew he was proud of his invention. Valentine had seen him working on them, and had a good idea of what Post was constructing, but he wanted his lieutenant to have his moment. Post waved a Coastal Marine over.

The man held an aluminum tube a good seven feet long. Valentine tested its heft.

"I wanted something light, of course. I found a bunch of aluminum pipe for electrical conduits in the machine shop. There was heaps of the stuff lying around in Kingston. It was easy to screw it together. Then we came up with the heads. It's that quickwood, threaded just like a pipe. Just a matter of screwing it in. It holds in well enough, but if we get a chance to stick it in a Reaper, it'll break off. Then you screw a new one."

He handed Valentine a sharpened cone of wood. It was perhaps sixteen inches long altogether, six inches of handle, threaded to go into the fitting at the end of the aluminum pole. The handle widened by an inch or so, before narrowing to a point capped with a sharp metal tip.

"I've seen those Reaper robes before. This'll penetrate," Post continued. "Material designed to stop a lead bullet doesn't do much good against a point like this. If things get dicey, you can grab a spare point by the handle and use it like a dagger. We've got an adapter for the rifles even, the men can put them on the end like a bayonet."

"The training with the Haitians?"

"We've got two pikemen to go with every rifleman. If it works like it is supposed to, the one with the shorter spear will stay in beside the rifleman. Then there's the man with the gun, and another with a long pike in back. Of course, that's only if we're up against a Reaper. Otherwise, the pike-men will be hugging dirt until they can get firearms."

"That's the whole point of this expedition."

Valentine met with Ahn-Kha next. The Grog held a mass of metal and wood the size of a ship's anchor in his arms.

"Practice with the crossbows?" Valentine asked.

"The new cords are holding better, my David."

"No shortage of nylon line on the Thunderbolt. Just a matter of weaving it together. We'll need Grogs for those. I don't think any of us are strong enough to cock a leaf-spring from a truck."

"Care to try?"

Valentine took the oversize crossbow. The wooden frame showed the usual Grog craftsmanship, from the reinforced trigger-housing to the heavy stock to balance the weighty span of metal at the front.

Valentine placed the crossbow on the ground, planted his feet against the reborn leaf-spring, and gripped the corded nylon. He heaved, and just managed to lock the cord over the trigger. He handed it back to Ahn-Kha, feeling sapped. Even a moment's exertion in Hispaniola's heat brought a fresh layer of sweat running over old accumulations of perspiration and dirt.

Ahn-Kha showed him one of the quarrels, also tipped with a metal point like Post's pikes. "See the wooden flutes? They will splinter in the wound. The quarrels are lacquered to keep the sap inside fresh."

"You're sure?"

"We shot a wild pig with one," Ahn-Kha said. "We dug inside, found half the shaft. The rest of the head shattered into splinters."

"How's it shoot?"

"Try."

Valentine lifted its weight with an effort. He tried to aim at a tree, but the weight of the crossbow defeated him.

Ahn-Kha snorted. "Try this." The Grog knelt into a three-point stance, and Valentine put the crossbow across his friend's back. Sighting on the tree was a good deal easier with a quarter ton of tripod. He tried the trigger.

The crossbow had more recoil than he'd thought, though it pulled forward rather than back into his shoulder. The quarrel spun oddly in flight; Valentine had only shot bows on occasion as a youth. The shaft buried itself into the tree trunk with a resounding thwack.

"We have four crossbows, and something even more interesting." Ahn-Kha threw a blanket off a lump on the ground, revealing something that looked like an old-fashioned cannon. Ahn-Kha unfolded a bipod at the nozzle, poured a measured amount of gunpowder in the muzzle, and tamped it down with a metal rod. Four wooden fins flared from the tip.

"It's a harpoon gun. Better range than the crossbows. The shaft might go clean through, but the fins will break off. We use loose-grain powder for this. The tight stuff launched it too fast-it didn't aim right."

"Seems a hell of a load to tote."

"The harpoon isn't the only thing it fires. We can load the head with explosives. It makes a good grenade thrower. I've designed one- and three-pound loads. We may find a use for them."

"We might at that," Valentine agreed.

He joined Jacques Monte-Cristi next. The guerrilla leader had an elongated face and deep hollows at his temples, as if a giant had grabbed his head as an infant and pulled his physiognomy into a new face. Gray frosted his shorn hair, and his eyes never rested. He had the lean, suspicious look that Valentine remembered from his years in the Wolves: that of a man who spent much of his time walking into danger.

"Have you heard from the others?" Valentine said. The French tripped off his tongue more easily with constant practice.

"My men reported that they are on the move. They will attack in the night the garrisons north and south of our route, and screen our movement into the central mountains."

"Rations?" Valentine had been asking the same questions for weeks, then offering advice until he got the answers he wanted. Now it was a matter of routine.

"Each man has two days, and we have a further two days on packhorses."

"Let's take a walk."

Valentine took a turn through Monte-Cristi's campsite. Two hundred armed men, aided by thirty "pioneers" who carried extra supplies and tended to the pack animals, were gathered in chattering groups. Valentine expected more tension on this, the morning of the expedition. Instead he heard singing, joking, and laughter from the clustered men. There was little formal command structure to Monte-Cristi's "regiment"; some of the guerrilla leaders had eighty men under them-some commanded a dozen. Valentine knew the names of only the leaders, and the men under them were a nameless mass, though he knew many faces by now.

They looked at Valentine as he passed through, smiling and nodding. He caught a word in Creole and smiled as he silently translated it. Valentine had heard a few men call him "Scar," and it seemed that the moniker had become general.

"How did you become responsible for all this?" Valentine asked after they had passed through the men.

"My 'sacred knives'? Pure obstinacy, Captain. It is not well known, but I am Santo Domingan."

"Why shouldn't it be well known?"

"The two sides of the island have bitter feelings going back before the Kur."

"I see. How did you end up on this side of the line?"

Monte-Cristi walked him out of the village and up the hillside and found a shady tree. They sat on the ground side by side and looked down at the lounging soldiers in the village. War, as always, was endless stretches of waiting. Fingernail-sized wildflowers bloomed in the morning sun.

"I was in the Santo Domingo underground. And we were literally an underground. We lived in natural caves and tunnels. I was in the 'cadre,' which I suppose meant officers. Mostly we exhorted others to join, and our men to stay.

Eventually they hunted us down to our caves and blocked us up. Two times they went in after us. None ever came out to tell how strong we were. So they turned to words. The National Guard promised us good treatment if we would come out, and we refused. They tried to smoke us out with burning tires. There is not much gasoline on this island, but they even used that. Some died choking. Have you ever seen a body of a man who is air-poisoned?"

Valentine shook his head.

"We began to go hungry, and the next time they sent a prisoner in with food and more promises, I gave my men a choice. They could leave with honor-they had already been asked to endure more than any man could be expected to survive and remain sane–but I would stay and die. I asked only that they leave me their knives, so I would have something to remember them by as I stayed in the cave."

"How many stayed?" Valentine asked.

"Very few, perhaps one in eight. And you know, I was glad. I felt that no man should have to die as we were, like some kind of vermin. Even if they marched them out to a firing squad, I thought that a better end.

"Those that remained … became ugly. We stayed alive in there seven months. No food but what we could catch, water that tasted like sulfur. They sealed the entrance and made the cave a tomb though we were not yet dead. We sickened and died. Some of the men took their own lives. We kept alive in ways that only one who has been through it before would understand. I kept up hope by looking for other exits, or seeing if we could enlarge the air holes to get out. We did find a cave with bats and we ate them, and I remember those days as you might remember one of the finest feasts of your life.

"So how am I alive and out, you are wondering? Some of the very men who left me their knives had slipped away, and came into the hills to get our bones. Our remains were to be relics in a secret monument to the resistance, you see. When they found us, I had to be pulled up and out. We were walk-

ing skeletons. Sadly, three more men sickened and died eating too much when we got out. But I still had their knives, and offered them back to their families. When I was well enough, we slipped into Haiti. My heart is weak and sometimes I think I am a little crazy, for all I dream of is those days in the darkness. I keep away the desire to return and die in that cave by fighting."

"So you became a leader because you refused to give up? That's as good a way as any to become a hero."

"But I do not deserve it. There are legends already about our ordeal. In Santo Domingo they say I turned my men into zombies, and ate them; Here in Haiti they say Baron Samedi came and brought us food from the other world, and anyone who has eaten it is never the same again. Both legends are part truth and part falsehood. Ever since then I have been Monte-Cristi, the one who lives for revenge for all those who died in the cave. I fear I will return to the cave, either in body or spirit. Both would mean the death of me."

"Narcisse told me that you were the kind of man to fight to the last drop of your blood. Sounds like you came closer to doing it than anyone I've ever heard of."

Monte-Cristi did not smile. He was the only Hispaniolan Valentine had met who did not smile at the slightest opportunity. "The men are interested in you, too. Your ship, the Grogs, the Jamaican pirates, they already say you are a white Toussaint-Louverture. A man of cunning alliances."

"They say too much," Valentine said. He thought of adding a platitude, like, 'We all do what we can,' but decided it would be trite. The man sitting next to him was beyond aphorisms.

"I think someone looks for you," Monte-Cristi said, pointing down the hill.

"Lieutenant Post. Thank you for the story … err … do you have a rank? Colonel, perhaps?"

"I am just Monte-Cristi. I would feel happier if I were Jacques to you."

"Then I will always be David to you, sir."

"Your other responsibilities await. I should get back to my men."

They walked back down the hill. Valentine noticed that Monte-Cristi breathed heavily.

Post trotted up to him, showing no sign of wound or alcohol. "That bandy-legged fellow's back, sir," Post said. "He's asking for you."

"That 'bandy-legged fellow' is going to keep us alive in the mountains, Post. His name is Cercado, and we're counting on him to get us to San Jose."

"No offense, of course. He's just funny-looking, whatever he's good at."

Valentine found the funny-looking man in question at the village well, drinking. He was short of stature, potbellied, and naked from the waist up and knees down. Tangled hair covered his head, shoulders, and even something of his face. He was a "roadwatcher," the one with the most extensive network in central Hispaniola.

"Good news?" Valentine asked. He had learned in previous conversations with the roadwatcher that most items in his brain were categorized as either "good news" or "bad news." This valley was "bad news," for there were troops under an active officer. Another mountainside was "good news," because there were strawberries to eat and many honeycombs.

"Good news," Cercado reported. "The soldiers in the garrisons think they are going to be attacked along the mountain roads. They've sent out many patrols where the Haitians have gathered. We could take elephants over the mountains, and it would not be known for days."

"How about food reserves?"

"There could be much more, if you could let me go outside my personal network. And this business about putting caches everywhere-both north and south of the peaks- much of the effort will go to waste."

"Tell them if it is not eaten in four days, they may have it back. We could be forced to turn aside, or even back, and I want that food available. Also, just in case word does get out

and they find some of them, they might guess wrong about where we are going because of the supplies."

Valentine missed his days on the Thunderbolt. Being on a ship eliminated many of the problems of food and drinking water, thanks to her available tonnage of stores. He was back to the days of commanding Wolves in the mountains, constantly worrying about how and where he would feed his men.

"You've done all that I asked and more. Take a meal and sleep while you can. We'll be setting off this afternoon."

"I can sleep while walking. I shall find you on the south slope of the Nalga de Maco tonight. If you hear hollow-log drumming, that means bad news. Turn back."

"Yes, I remember."

"But you will hear no drums, I am sure. Our friends will cause too much trouble for that."

Valentine made a noncommittal grunt.

The column was already ascending the mountainside when they heard the shots. Some trick of acoustics among the clouds and hills brought the faint popping sound of small-arms fire and deeper explosions from the garrison to the south, where Bayenne was making as much noise as possible. His feint against the garrison guarding one of the valley passages into Santo Domingo was crucial to drawing away whatever patrols might be out north of the garrison.

The raiding column moved with Ahn-Kha and his Grogs in the vanguard. Valentine hoped their unexpected presence would frighten, or at least confuse, any patrols they ran into. The heavier weapons, along with the sailors and marines of the Thunderbolt, followed behind, with Post in charge of making sure the main body did not lose contact with the Grogs. The Haitians were next with the packhorses, accompanied by a mounted force of Monte-Cristi's men watching the front, flanks and rear.

Valentine, astride a Haitian roan with a white blaze across its face, walked the animal along the marching col-

umn of Monte-Cristi's men. A runner from the forward column sought him out.

"Bad news, sir. The forward van ran into a patrol. They shot at each other-no one was hurt."

Valentine said a prayer of thanks that the men Monte-Cristi chose for his runners spoke their Creole clearly enough for him to understand.

So the Santo Domingans were no fools. He had hoped their forces would pull in around the garrisons, fearing an all-out assault. Instead they were probing.

Hoofbeats behind announced the arrival of Monte-Cristi.

"We're found out already. The screening patrol Bayenne sent out missed them," Valentine said.

"Do we turn back?"

Valentine fought the urge to swear. "They're your men, no matter what we decided about the command. The risk is greater now, but I say no. I won't make it an order, however. We can go with less. Detach a good number of men, fifty or sixty, under a capable officer. Have them chase that patrol south and make it look like we're a flanking maneuver to cut off the garrison's road. If they do cut it, so much the better."

"And if they meet greater numbers in turn?"

"Then they run like hell for Bayenne or anywhere they think is safe. I want the Santo Domingans to do the bleeding, not us."

"Agreed. Papa Legba said you were a man to be followed, despite your years. We go on."

After a brief halt that allowed Monte-Cristi to organize the detachment, they got under way again. The column trudged steadily and slowly uphill. The sun vanished in a crimson explosion, then turned the sky over to the stars. With the night complicating matters, Post called frequent halts to allow the column to keep in a compact bunch. At every stop, the men ate some of their rations meant to last for two days, but Valentine left that to Monte-Cristi. He had been warned that the men preferred to carry their food in their stomachs instead of in their bags.

Cercado appeared out of the dark, with two skinny youths he introduced as nephews. The boys did not take after their uncle in grooming: their scalps were shorn like merinos in springtime.

"We had some trouble near the border. A patrol."

"I am sorry, Captain. Always in war is bad news. Always."

You just summed up war almost as concisely as Sherman, roadwatcher. "We're pressing on. You've got more of your family spread out up the mountain, and then down to San Jose?"

"Yes."

"How many are there?"

Cercado frowned. "Were it not for the accursed ones, there would be sixty-seven or more. My father had five sons and three daughters, and I am the second oldest. My father and my elder brother both died. Every year more die than are born. There are twenty-nine of us now. In ten years' time, the family of Cercado will cease to be, unless some of the infants survive. They hunt us up and down the mountains, and sometimes they find us."

"Why do you keep on?"

"Why do you?"

Valentine nodded at the feral-looking man, for a moment feeling an affinity for him stronger than his battle-tested friendship with Post. "I understand. I'm the last of my family."

"You are still young. Find a wife, have children, go far from them. There are other ways to beat them than killing."

"My father tried that. I'm still the last."

"I see. So you stick to killing." It was a statement, not a question.

Valentine looked back at the men. "How long until we can rest?"

Cercado took the question literally. "At the rate you go? A few more hours. Say five at most. Then you will be safe among the heights."

They reached the heights, grassy meadows on the rounded tops of the mountains that reminded Valentine of some of the weather-rounded peaks of the Ouachitas. They had come up far. Far higher than the mountain that held the Once-ler's Citadel. It was cool, even for Haiti in June, at this elevation.

Valentine walked his horse backwards down the column. He nodded at Monte-Cristi. "We'll rest until dawn," Monte-Cristi announced. The men groaned in relief as they sat.

There was Post to see, and Ahn-Kha. The Grogs were already sleeping in a heap of limbs and broad backs, like pigs seeking the comfort of each other's warmth in a cold sty.

"Rest, my David. I will keep watch," Ahn-Kha said.

"I'll join you. I can sleep in the saddle tomorrow."

"You are limping. You always do when you are tired. Stop pretending you're a ghost and rest," Ahn-Kha argued, sotto voce. Ahn-Kha's rubbery lips came to a point like an accusing finger.

"Wake me in two hours. Then you can sleep. Two hours, old horse, and that's all."

"Agreed."

Valentine unsaddled his mount and wiped the sweat from its back and muzzle. By the time he hobbled it, gave it a nosebag full of vegetables ground with sugar, and checked its hooves, half an hour of his two was gone. He looked at Ahn-Kha, standing atop a rock with the patience of a tree, as if the rock itself would succumb to fatigue before the Golden One would. Comforted, he slept beneath the statuelike shape.

"Up. You've been asleep two hours," Ahn-Kha said, prodding him in the back with one of his crossbow bolts.

Valentine snatched the bolt and rapped Ahn-Kha on the shin with it before the Golden One could react. "Thanks."

Ahn-Kha responded with a playful swipe of his long-toed foot that Valentine ducked under even as he rose. There was a hint of something in the air, the early purple of the

predawn. He realized he was chilled. "You lie down. My blanket's warm."

Ahn-Kha grunted and wrapped what he could of himself in the blanket. "Thank you, my David. That scout, Sera-"

"Cercado."

"Cercado kept awake. He moves well. I've never seen a man who can vanish among the rocks like that. Only you are more silent. But he hides even his shadow in his pocket."

"Speaking of silence …," Valentine said.

The Grog snorted and closed his eyes.

Valentine watched the mists revealed by the dawn, admiring the craftsmanship of the crossbow quarrel while waiting out the light. The quarrel had chiseled ridges running down the shaft, creating an artful, air-guiding line from tip to flange. The Grogs put artistry into everything they made, even something meant to be fired once into an enemy.

The pink-and-blue of first light revealed his column isolated as though on the shores of an island, surrounded by a calm gray sea of fog. Everything was reduced at this height: the trees, grasses, and flowers were all smaller, as if imitating the foreshortened landscape below. He woke Monte-Cristi, who in turn woke his other chieftains. The soldiers gathered at a spring Cercado pointed out. Their guide's discovery was hardly more than a seep, but the men lined up as though it were a tiled bath.

Valentine wished for a moment he were one of them, joking as they waited for a washup. His thoughts drifted back, as they did with unsettling frequency, to the months of Quisling service on the Gulf Coast. Ordinary soldiers weren't asked to put on the uniform of their bitterest enemy, salute men they despised, organize more thorough sweeps of coastal islands and bays to capture auras for the insatiable Kurians. At the time he told himself, told Duvalier, that he just followed orders, didn't kill anyone himself unless they were shooting at him. Usually in defense of their families. Maybe Duvalier believed him. Trouble lay in that he couldn't convince himself. He could still hear the squalling

of terrified children as his men shoved them and their mothers into pens, ready to be shipped…

"The mists are a stroke of fortune," Cercado said from somewhere on the other side of the world. "If we move now, we can be back among the trees before they clear. It is downhill from here."

Valentine boxed up his terrible memories. For now. "Good. We'll get off this ridge while it lasts."

He endured a series of vexing delays while the men took up their arms and equipment. Only the packhorses were ready, happily cropping mouthfuls of mountain grass.

Post came up the slope from the head of the column as Valentine mounted his horse. "There's trouble with the Grogs."

Valentine rode off the ridge and came upon Ahn-Kha, arguing with his scouts. The Golden One used a combination of barks and gestures to encourage his reluctant charges.

"What's the matter?"

Ahn-Kha's ears were up and pointed forward. "Fools! They take the mists for poisoned air. They remember their grandfathers' tales of chemical weapons of fifty years ago, and they're frightened of descending into the fog."

"Post, keep the column moving, don't worry about the Grogs for now," Valentine said, using the quarrel to tap the horse's flank. It trotted down the grassy slope toward the fog.

"I'll ride in and come out alive," he hollered back. "Tell them I breathe just as they do." The mist closed in around him. The sun winked white on the horizon.

When he replayed the incident in his mind later, Valentine rebuked himself for forgetting everything old Everready had taught him about moving alone, his first year as a Wolf. He had failed to lower his lifesign and his anger at the delays kept his senses from knowing the Reaper was near until it leapt out of the mist.

It wanted him as a prisoner, not as a corpse, for it killed the horse with a kick that caved in the roan's skull. Man, beast, and Reaper crashed to the meadow grass. Man fell be-

neath beast; Reaper landed on its feet beside Valentine with feline poise. It turned, its bullet-stopping cape cracking the air like a whip.

Valentine reached for his holster, but the Reaper was faster. It planted a foot on him, and knocked away his automatic faster than his eyes could follow the motion.

His arm went numb. The Reaper reached behind him and removed his machete from its sheath across his back. Pinned as he was, he could no more grasp the machine gun strapped across his saddlebags than he could the mountaintop.

"Hel-," Valentine managed, before the Reaper's long-fingered hand closed over his face. Fingernails like steel talons dug into his cheek.

The Reaper dragged him out from under the horse by his head, its baleful yellow eyes staring into his from an unkempt tangle of thin black hair. Its mouth was open in a theater-mask grin, revealing pointed black teeth. It looked upslope at some motion Valentine caught out of the corner of his eye, and pulled its captive to its chest, putting the other arm under his knees, like a muscular hero taking up his lover. The Reaper turned to run.

Valentine struck. In pulling him free, the Reaper released his trapped hand holding the quarrel. He gripped the wood near the point and struck the Reaper in the pit of its stomach. The Reaper staggered, gripping him so tightly to its chest, he thought his back would break. Valentine fought the crushing embrace and lost. He could not draw breath.

Suddenly Post was in front of them, one of his pikes barring the way. Valentine looked up at the Reaper's face. Its mouth yawned open in a terrible grimace, fighting some inner seizure. It dropped him, and sank to its knees.

Valentine rolled downhill. He turned three full revolutions before stopping himself. Vision wavering from pain and dizziness, he looked up at the Reaper. Its eyes rolled up into its skull. Post stood frozen, staring at the thing in astonishment.

Ahn-Kha appeared in the mists, his crossbow cocked and ready. The Grog circled the Reaper, and saw the bolt protruding from the stomach, the wood swollen where it touched the avatar's flesh. Ahn-Kha came to Valentine's side, keeping the weapon ready but his attention on V