He looked back at his men. Post, curious to see what Free Territory looked like, walked at the head of files of former Jamaicans and Thunderbolt marines, at least those who hadn't taken the Texas teamsters' places at the wagons, to either side of the transport. The men shivered in the winter wind. The men had a good chance of seeing their first snowfall that night if the temperature continued to drop.
The gates came to a rest with a thump.
A gallows. The sight of it froze him before his brain processed the structure. It stood in an open spot, like a broken tooth, between two buildings on the left side of the main street. Hangings were rare in the Free Territory, and only a few capital crimes merited them. Even Quisling officers faced the firing squad rather than the noose; the hangings that did take place went on in a prison, not a town square. The sight of a gallows was all too common in the Kurian Zone, however. Valentine's memory raced back to a story his first captain had told him, of a town secretly seized by the Kurians to trap the Wolves in his command.
"Kenso," Valentine said to Ahn-Kha. The word for "danger" was one of the few in the Golden One's vocabulary that he knew. Ahn-Kha's ears shot up in surprise, then flattened against his bullet-head.
Valentine held up his right hand. "Ho," he called, keeping the horse moving to allow the wagon train to come to a stop without collisions, even as his feverish mind raced.
"What's the matter?" Murphy said. If it was an act, it was a superb one.
"We can't outspan in town. You want all these oxen milling around people's porches? Could get smelly," Valentine asked.
"I'm headquartered at this town. There's two corrals and a barn or two. They'll fit."
Post approached, ready as always for orders.
Valentine ignored Murphy. "Mr. Post, we'll circle the wagons in that clearing there, if you please. Downwind from the town, as a gesture to the civilians. Thank you." Post stiffened at the formal tone and elaborate pleasantries. "That is, if you have no objections, Captain Murphy?"
Murphy looked around at his men, then up the road to the town. "Well... no, of course not. Why would I?"
Valentine got off his horse and led it to Post. "Mr. Post, let's snap to it," he said, and then lowered his voice, tilting toward Post with his chin jutting out, as if upbraiding him privately. "I can't explain, but I don't like the look of this. Keep your gun handy, and alert the men. I hope it's nothing."
Post nodded and turned to give orders to the sergeants in the wagons. If the lieutenant looked upset to Murphy, he hoped that the feigned reprimand would explain the startled eyes and stiff backbone. Valentine turned on his heel and led his horse toward the clearing, Ahn-Kha falling in behind like an obedient dog. Ahn-Kha made as if to loosen the saddle on the horse and instead loosened Valentine's submachine gun in its sheath.
The wagon wheels resumed their noisy journey, squealing their axle-joints as the teams turned off the road and bumped to the clearing.
The captain came to some kind of decision. Murphy herded his men to the rear of the column. When he turned them one more time, to face the tired men bringing up the rear, he extracted a wide-mouthed pistol and pointed it at the center of the column. Across the distance, the Cat met the mounted man's eyes and read his fixed expression.
'To arms!" Valentine bellowed.
The hammer fell on Murphy's gun, and a flare arced out, sputtering through the sky in slow motion. The former Thunderbolt men threw themselves down from the wagons, pulling rifles and pistols. Post vaulted into the bed of the front wagon, where men were already loading a machine gun. Ahn-Kha brought up his long rifle, swinging the mouth toward Murphy, but the turncoat came off his saddle in a blur of horseflesh as his men dismounted and let their horses run.
The flare hit in the center of the column of wagons, and lay there, sparking. It spat out a chemical cough.
A wave of gunfire ripped across the convoy. Valentine saw heads appear at the walls of Bern Woods. The gate towers sprouted men as if someone had touched a wand to the platforms. He pulled out his PPD as a bullet smacked into the horse's flank. The wounded beast leapt sideways, knocking him to the ground even as it lurched, hind legs collapsing.
Smoke began to pour out of the flare, as if in landing it had opened some underground reservoir of purple steam.
The sound of shooting grew like the roar of an approaching wave. Machine guns added their deadly mechanical drum roll to the air-rending sound of gunfire. Panicked oxen bellowed and died. Other teams of horses ran from the explosions, throwing drivers from the runaway wagons.
Valentine smelled his horse's blood even as he tried to shut out the high, whinnying screams. Ahn-Kha swung the barrel, and his gun cracked. The Grog didn't shoot the horse; he dropped a figure in the gate tower firing an assault rifle. Valentine saw a Jamaican fall to earth, dying in a pose eerily like a Muslim praying.
The flare, after its brief fireworks, sputtered out.
Valentine sent a bullet into his wounded horse's head, then took cover behind the body. Ahn-Kha rolled to his side.
A hissing sound, and something exploded among the wagons. The blast threw a severed hand into the air, spinning it like a tossed daisy. Valentine squeezed off burst after burst into Murphy's men, emptying the drum on his gun. The turncoats were firing shotguns and lobbing grenades into the rear wagons; confused men got up to run, and died.
Another hiss and another explosion among the wagons. Pieces of a team flew as their wagon reared up on its back wheels, falling to pieces even as it overturned. Valentine saw something like a stovepipe pointing out from the stone roof of the town's tallest building. A recoilless rifle? More men poured from the gates at both sides of the town.
"Ahn-Kha!" he said, slapping his aiming friend on the shoulder. Valentine pointed. Heads appeared briefly over the barrel as the weapon was reloaded.
Ahn-Kha slid a finger-length bullet into the receiver. An ear twitched on the Grog as he brought the gun up and sighted with a rose-colored eye. Sighting in the time it took to draw a breath, the gun snapped and shot. Valentine saw a hat, or perhaps part of a head, torn away by the bullet.
The backblast of the recoilless flared in a gray cloud, and the shell exploded by Post's wagon. Old Handy Sixguns and the machine-gunners disappeared in the blast. Nothing but body parts remained. Valentine's marines were crawling out of the cross fire, or throwing away their weapons and sheltering among the stumps in the clearing.
The precious quickwood was burning. Two wagons flamed, putting oily smoke into the colorless sky. Valentine clenched his teeth until his jaws screamed in agony, reloading and firing his gun with tears in his eyes. He saw a Quisling rider grasp Narcisse by the hair and jerk her from her saddle, ignoring the blows from the quirt fixed to her arm. Post gone, his Jamaicans cut to pieces. Nothing mattered now.