Valentine wanted to make time, so he walked well out in the open, intimidating-looking gun over his shoulder, sweating freely under the heat of the September sun. He pushed through the green chaos of what had been either a golf course or a park and moved out onto a series of parking lots in the midst of being reclaimed by forest, with the overgrowth-dripped roof of the mall in the western distance.
He came upon an east-west road, no more or no less clear than any of the others he had crossed, littered with the rusting ruins of weather-beaten cars, many with small ter-rariums growing in the sheltered detritus within, like a series of rust-colored planters. But he picked up a battlefield odor-flesh rotting in the sun.
He followed the smell and saw stains, recent but faded to brown, splashed on a car, and his nose located the fresh, overripe smell of bodies in the afternoon heat. A little farther down, Harpies, the snaggletoothed, ugly, bowlegged, and bat-armed Grogs that Valentine despised from his earliest days in the Free Territory, lay dead on the road and tossed atop cars.
Among their broken forms he found a huge fallen backpack-far too large to be carried by a Harpy, even on its feet, in the road. It was fashioned out of wood and skins, grafted on a core of what looked like a tube-steel frame of a kitchen chair, clearly homemade but showing a great deal of delicate craftsmanship in the numerous leather laces and braces. Obviously some Harpies had survived the encounter with the backpack-wearer, for it was empty.
Curious for some reason, Valentine tried to read the story of the battle from the placement of the bodies. The Harpies first attacked their victim in the middle of the road, judging from the two that lay dead to the east with bullet holes. His resdess mind welcomed the challenge; he got on his hands and knees to find discarded shell casings. Their victim tried to make it to the trees Valentine had just emerged from, killing one on the way by tearing a leathery wing, breaking its neck, and throwing it into a car. He was strong, whoever he was. And tall-the Harpy had been thrown through the sedan's sunroof. Around the fallen pack, there was more dried blood, an increasingly heavy trail that became a torrent as it reached the broken windows of an old McDonald's. Valentine saw a final dead flier, but nothing else, in the stripped-out lobby of the restaurant.
McDonald's built its restaurants to last; mis one's roof was still more or less sound after nearly fifty years of Nebraska's seasons. Stepping softly, Valentine followed the blood trail into the back of the building, through the debris and growth springing up wherever swirls of dirt accumulated. The trail ended in the dark, cavelike metal walk-in that had once been a refrigerator, or perhaps a freezer.
Valentine smelled more blood and heard slow, labored, breaming. He opened the door to the freezer a little farther, and looked inside.
A Grog lay curled up on the floor. An enormous one. It looked to be a type he had glimpsed among the Twisted Cross trains, taller and not quite so broadly built as the fierce gray apes he was familiar with. This one's exposed skin, rather than resembling the thick slabs of armor plating like that of a rhino that the Grogs on Little Timber bore, was rougher and deeply wrinkled, pebbled like an elephant's. It was also wearing fitted clothing. He had never seen Grogs in anything more than simple loincloths or vests. It was dusted with soft, fawn-colored fur, in patches on its chest and somewhat heavier on its back and shoulders. Blood matted the sparse fur. An ugly brown streak ran from the Grog to a drain in the center of the floor.
It was unconscious, obviously dying. Valentine almost shut the door, to leave it to expire in peace, when he heard the slightest whimpering sound from the Grog, lost in some pain-diffusing dream. Whatever else, it had killed six Harpies, four with its bare hands. It deserved some thanks as far as Valentine was concerned. He began to rummage around for something that could be used as bandages.
The store was empty, but while exploring the basement, he found a few rags and old towels. The uniform closets and employee lockers had been stripped long ago, but he found a large red flag, well trodden on and obviously once used as a carpet on the cold floor by some unknown resident, long gone. He found an old box with packets of mix labeled sanitizer, read the label, opened one up and experimentally added it to some water poured from his canteen into one of the buckets scattered around the basement.
Absently he stuck the empty packet in a pocket. Going over the Spanish instructions and comparing them to the English half would give his mind something to do later on.
Working with speed now, he went back outside and found rainwater in a crumbled sewer. He filled two buckets with water, and then rinsed out the rags and the dirty flag as best he could in the standing water. After that he filled two buckets and poured some packets of sanitizer into one, starting the material in on a cleansing soak. Returning with the water, he gathered deadfall branches under his arm and came back to the restaurant. Using a match for expediency instead of his usual small magnifying glass, he built a fire in one of the old fry-vats with the branches and set a metal bucket of water on a rusty grill over the fire to boil.
Valentine wondered how long the material should soak in the sanitizer. He made more trips for water, until he had every portable vessel he could find full up, then began to turn the cloth into bandages. He stripped and tied the cloth with almost hysterical speed, and forced himself to calm down. After a few deep breaths, he brought the boiled water and the strips of chlorine-scented cloth into the metal-walled room and began to wash and dress the limp creature's wounds. It was wearing a sleeveless, short robe that tied behind it in the small of its back, now badly torn and bloodstained. Valentine removed it and tossed it in the sani-tizer bucket, where it joined the bloodstained rags that he used to dress the wounds.
Its cuts and gouges and bites bled again, but slightly. Whatever else might be said about Grogs, they died hard. With more time now, Valentine took the bloody rags to the fire and threw them in another bucket of bubbling water to boil clean.
He had a little brown sugar and a jar of honey, a gift from one of the farms in Northeastern Nebraska. The bee enthusiast had also given him pieces of dried honeycomb along with the syrup. In Valentine's next boil, he dissolved some sugar, honey, and honeycomb, and brought it in to the Grog. Using a washcloth-size piece of material, he poured the warm sugar-water into the cloth and then placed it in the creature's mouth, cradling its bearlike head in his lap. It began to instinctively suckle at the liquid.
Twenty-four hours later, having given it six more feedings and another change of bandages, Valentine prepared to leave the Grog. He arranged the honeycomb, a large supply of water, and some dried beef within reach, along with a bag of all the edible fungi he could scour from the nearby woods.
He hurried to pack up, for the Grog showed signs of returning to consciousness. Its breathing was slow and regular, and it no longer alternately groaned and whimpered. The Grog's remarkable body, perhaps more than Valentine's fit of tenderness, had pulled it through its numerous injuries.
Valentine took a last look at his patient. He had made a bed for it out of some of the scraps downstairs and padded it with moldy-smelling paper, but at least it was a cushion of sorts. Oddly enough, he felt the time spent treating the Grog was not wasted. He'd needed a day or two's rest anyway, and the empty restaurant was as good a place as any. He wished to be off well before nightfall, however, since the Harpies evidently hunted the region.
Valentine turned to leave and began to walk out of the kitchen area, when his sharp ears picked up a hoarse croak. "Wait... man."
Valentine had never heard English out of a Grog before. Intrigued, he returned to the freezer.
"Was .. . this ... you?" it asked, pointing to the dressings around its head and chest. It had a voice like a rock slide, a low, clattering rumble.
Valentine nodded. "Yes."
"Food . . . drink ... also?" It tried to sit up, failed, but managed to raise its ursine head. Its pointed ears extended, sticking up on either side of its head like a bat's when unfolded. The ear tips tilted toward Valentine. "Why?"
He shrugged, before it occurred to him that the Grog might not know the meaning of the gesture. "You fought outside very . . . bravely. Call it a tribute. Do you understand?"
It closed its eyes for one long second. "No."
"It means I think you're strong, a warrior. Give help then."
The Grog chuckled, a low sound like subterranean grinding. "No ... man. Your ... words ... I... understood. You ... purpose ... I... not... understood."
"That makes two of us. I will leave you now. I think you'll be all right."
"Thank ... you ... but... gratitude ... is ... owed."
"No."