"Strange sort of pine, my David. The needles are like thorns."
Valentine touched the bark; it was smoother than most pines, more skinlike. It made him think of the beeches of the north. The smaller branches had thorns growing on them.
"It isn't pine, Golden One. It is quickwood, to translate it into English," the Kurian said. "This is your weapon."
"Trees? You can't-," Valentine began, then fell into a stunned silence.
"This is what you came to find."
All the miles, all the risks, for a stand of timber. He stifled a hysterical laugh. "Quickwood? A tree is the new weapon against Kur? Okay, walking through a thick stand would be like walking through razor-wire, but that's not much of a weapon."
Papa Legba nodded. "You are almost right. The Dau 'weem don't think like men, you must remember. They create organisms to do their work, not tools. Quickwood takes different forms, and there is a variant that grows into thorny hedges."
"A hedge? Do you know how big a hedge we would need to keep the Reapers out of the Ozarks?"
"Where is the famous Valentine patience? You've no doubt already fought the Reapers. Why are they so hard to kill?"
Valentine called up his ugly memories. "Well, they're strong and fast, for one. They're on you before you can bring your gun up. Even if you put a few rounds into them, those robes they wear slow the bullets, and if you do get flesh, that black fluid turns gummy when it hits the air, they never bleed to death. Then there's their skeleton-"
"That 'gummy fluid,' Valentine. Their circulatory fluid. They use it to transport oxygen as you do, though inside them it stays as liquefied as your blood. Quickwood has chemicals in it, in the sap and pockets in the thorns, to be precise, that act as a catalyst. To you it is an irritant that makes you itch. To one of the Reapers it produces an effect similar to that which happens when they are wounded and the blood is exposed to atmosphere. When it enters their bloodstream-"
Valentine made the mental leap. "Holy Christ!" he said in English.
"Yes, but it kills them much faster than the wooden cross killed your prophet. It is most effective if the wood is still living or recently cut, the results are nothing short of spectacular. But even wood that is older, as long as it has some residue that gets brought into contact with their 'blood,' will prove lethal."
"Why is it here? Why haven't the Lifewe-the Dau'weem planted this stuff everywhere?"
"That is a story that would be worth telling, if anyone were in possession of the whole tale. It was grown on another continent, long ago. Quickwood was used in the first incursion against us. By us, I mean Kur, of course. A few tens of generations after the victory, your people knew only to worship these trees, and in the intervening millennia, even that practice faded. I imagine the trees were turned into huts or firewood. Once harvested, it does burn exceedingly well and makes fine charcoal.
"The next part of the story takes place in the shadowy years as Kur again opened doors to Earth. A Dau'weem named Sen living on Earth, or I should say who was trapped on Earth, for the Dau'weem had closed all the doors and destroyed the connections as best they could. Sen learned of the new one that had been opened here in Haiti. He tried to reveal himself to certain authorities, but was branded a heretic and threatened with death. With a few of his followers, he searched throughout Central Asia, hunting not for
treasure or lost cities but for this kind of tree. They found some survivors, and not without a great deal of difficulty managed to get it to this island, where they thought a great battle might one day be fought against Kur.
"They planted seeds and saplings, but were discovered by Kur's allies. Somehow the fact that they had brought quickwood to the island remained secret. I can't say for certain that they all died, but I know Sen was returned to Kur. I remember the triumph when they brought him back. A diary one of his men kept, in Turkish of all things, stayed in a cave they were using. It was discovered only a few years ago. Haiti's charcoal gatherers destroyed most of the stands of quickwood they planted, so even the fact that the secret was kept from Kur was almost turned to naught. I happened upon the diary and managed to translate it. I realized there were quickwood trees living on the national preserve around the old ruins here, and I began to experiment with it. I've resurrected the hedge version of quickwood. You are welcome to take samples of that back with you, as well. Both variants are hardy. They will grow anywhere more mundane pine can exist."
Valentine began counting tree trunks. "How much have you grown?"
"More than you can carry. You can take back saplings, seeds, even timber if you choose. I've seen to it that more groves exist in the mountains you see west of here. That is why the resistance thrives here on Haiti. The Reapers who go into the mountains do not return."
"I'd like to talk to the leader of the guerrillas, find out how he uses it in action."
"Victo here can arrange it for you. He's one of them."
The conference was held on the first night of May, under a new moon. Valentine, Ahn-Kha, Victo, and Post met in one of the spacious old rooms of the partially restored estate at Sans Souci. Papa Legba slumbered in a hammock chair on a veranda, with two of his attending priests squatting at the
foot, ready to do his bidding should he awake. Narcisse was nearby, sitting on a cushion and cheerful in a red dress, watching the conference and Papa Legba.
Three great guerrilla warriors attended, arriving with ceremony they found appropriate. A praise-singer entered first, regaling the attendees with a litany of virtues and victories of their warlord to a Caribbean beat. Bayenne, the Rock of Thormonde (among other titles), was from the south, with a thousand soldiers and ten thousand subjects under him. Jacques Monte-Cristi had men, his "sacred knives" scattered to the west, blocking any drive from the other half of the island along the north coast. Victo served one of his lieutenants, in charge of the area immediately around Cape Haitian, nominally under the control of Kur. And finally there was Anton Uwenge, the Blue Devil of the Three Rivers, who commanded "three legions, one for each river of the north"-though the "legions" sounded like undersize regiments when Valentine pressed Victo for details.
Valentine, acting as host after an introduction by Papa Legba, began the conference at a long table in what had once been a magnificent dining room. "Thank you all for making the journey to Sans Souci. Please forgive my French-it is poor, and my understanding of your inflections even worse. I may have to use my friend and rescuer Narcisse as an interpreter at times.
"We've heard about the successes you've had on this island up north. We know you fight here with few resources but courage. We think you can help us, by teaching us how you use quickwood when you fight. I mean to take some back in a ship, so that we can do the same in the North."
The guerrilla leaders exchanged a few quiet words and gestures.
Bayenne rose to speak. "My men dig traps in the hills," Bayenne began. "Some big enough to swallow a bus, some only as large as your foot. We line the bottoms with stakes cut from the branches of the sacred trees. They wound the Haitian soldiers forced to fight us, and many times a man
with a bad foot wound is no longer forced to fight. The others, the Whisperers, they kill, as long as it is not a trap from last year. My men carry stabbing-daggers made of the sacred wood, as well."