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.