Post had the Thunderbolt's marines backing up the Grogs as they stormed the barracks. The Haitians were at the gates of the worker compounds, breaking bamboo posts with crowbars and axes. The Thunderbolt's men stayed at the battle-truck, training their weapons on the unoccupied buildings. A rifle or two popped from the cane fields, but wherever the shots were aimed, they caused no damage.
"See if there are any animals in the stables," he told Post, the sight of uniformed bodies lying here and there turning
his bloodlust into revulsion. At the Kurian system. At himself.
An hour later the plantation was in flames, and Valentine had almost a hundred more charges. Before burning it he had turned over the contents of the station house, barracks, and storerooms to them so they could carry off what they would. The problem was that they carried it off in the trail of his convoy.
By the time they camped, still on the banks of the river flowing out of the mountains of the Cordillera Central, Valentine guessed those following his trucks, wagons, and animals to number in the hundreds. Some of the refugees drove pigs and goats, or pulled donkeys along with children or the aged perched on blanketed backs. He found Cercado warming some beans and rice on the battle-truck's radiator.
"A good day," Cercado said, between spoonfuls.
"We've picked up a lot of stragglers, though."
"Who would blame them?"
"Please, go among them. Find out what their plans are. Tell them ... tell them we are marching toward battle, and we need young men who would use machetes or guns."
"You can't be serious, Captain. I doubt if one among them knows one end of a rifle from another. They'd be safer using it as a club."
"Perhaps. If this keeps going on, by the time we get to Puerto Viejo, we'll have thousands of mem. It would be-"
"Unfortunate," Cercado finished.
"Agreed. Go among them, talk to them, see what they plan to do."
Cercado spat. "That I can tell you already. They want to get away."
"Let them know that's not an option. If they want to be free of the Kurians, they'll have to do it themselves. I'm not Moses. I can't bring the multitudes out of Egypt."
The next day, the caravan crawling southwest along the old highway was outnumbered by those following it. The
Santo Domingans never interfered with the soldiers, though Valentine expected that his men dropped back into their mass to distribute food and water, especially to the children. If they made it to the coast, it would be with an emptier belly and a tighter belt around it.
If there was a bright side, it was that from a distance, his column would be mistaken for an army moving down the road, occupying miles of trail. With Monte-Cristi's riders and the Grogs leaving the column on excursions to set fire to roadside police stations, gather weapons and ammunition, and cut down telephone wires, the Kurians farther east might be convinced their border garrisons had collapsed, and an invading host was pouring out of Haiti. In the intervening days, he might have a chance to slip away in the confusion without further battle.
Adding to this belief was the fact that the Kurians had already instituted a "scorched earth" policy as he moved east. They found fewer and fewer stations and plantations intact. Villages were burned and supplies destroyed or removed, adding to bis logistics worries. They were beyond the zone where Cercado's roadwatching network had stashed food, and while water was plentiful grain was running out for the horses, and food became short for the men.
He reduced some of his problems by ordering the slaughter of a few broken-down pack animals when they camped that night, the second since leaving the armory at San Jose, sharing the ample meat out to the cooking pots of those trailing the convoy.
Cercado joined Valentine and Ahn-Kha at their cooking-fire, appearing as he always did with his mixture of good news and bad. Their guide smoked a cigar, sending satisfied puffs skyward with his back against a palm.
"The rumors you spread about an attack on Santo Domingo have come back to bite you, Captain Valentine," Cercado said. "Yes, it has scared the Kurians for now, but they are mustering forces west and east. These people have heard that the campaign against the island under Port-au-
Prince has been called off, and their general is marching east to crush you. Even larger forces will come soon from the west."
"How soon?" Valentine asked, grateful that Cercado was keeping his voice down.
"Impossible to say. You must travel faster once you make the turn for the coast. They may move to anticipate you."
Valentine looked into the fire. There had been delays almost from the first minute-how many were due to his faulty planning? How many to bad execution? His quick raid into the Kurian Zone, to test the quickwood weapons and get more arms for the Haitians, had succeeded in the first task: he had seen how effective the wood was with his own eyes. The second, while not being a total failure, had come far short of expectations. And now it looked as if the column would be swallowed entirely.
"You've done all we asked superbly, Cercado. We're almost to the road to the sea. You and your family members should slip away now and go back to your mountains. Take whatever weapons you wish, even some of those from the Thunderbolt. It is the least we can do for you."
"Captain, Santo Domingo has not seen the like of this in many years. Such a rising will come to a bad end, or a good one. Either way, it will be the subject for tales and songs that the peons of this island will tell long after I die, even should God grant me a life a hundred years long. What man, if he is a man, would not want to be a part of it? Even now, the poor peons on the road call you Revenant They say that a Reaper had you in its arms, but before it could bite you, you bit it, killing it. They say when you are wounded, you cut the body parts from your enemies and meld them with your own. Such tales are told of you-it curls the hair on my toes.
"I will tell you something else. The smokes you saw on the horizon today, they are not just Jacques's riders-they are the peons fighting on their own, or the Whisperers burning and saving us the trouble of doing it. The countryside
has risen. They've borne evil after evil too long. The men are sending their women and children to you for safety while they take to the hills."