Branches and undergrowth up and moved on the opposite bank, as though the Birnam Wood suddenly decided to move a few yards toward the Ohio.
Boats shot through the gaps in the riverbank growth. Lines of the Host-it looked as though most were Moondaggers-splashed into the water and then fell into the boats, where they picked up paddles and began to paddle madly across the river.
The pontoon boat seemed to spark, and suddenly smoke began to pour out of its windows and lower doors. Strange gray smoke, to be sure, but it did its job obscuring the river.
"I know that smoke," Valentine said. "Ping-Pong balls and match heads. Like ten thousand or so."
The smoke billowed and spread under the influence of the wind, advancing toward them at an angle like a flanking army.
Valentine was of the opinion that many battles were won or lost before the first shot was fired. One side just did a better job of getting more force into a position where it could strike than the other. Such was the case here.
The Kentucky Alliance could see it as easily as he could and decided to get while the getting was good, as a few of their own artillery shells fell blind into the mass of smoke.
"Let's get out of here!" Frat shouted.
"Bastards. Let me at 'em," Chieftain said.
"You'll fall back with the rest of us," Valentine said, grabbing the giant by the shirt collar and dragging him back.
Silvertip, not yet full of battle fury and able to think, yanked Valentine so hard in the tug-of-war with Chieftain's anger that the potential daisy chain broke. Valentine had to check to see if he left his boots behind. Bee did a three-limb galumph up and into the smoke.
As Silvertip dragged Valentine up the riverbank slope, he observed that the Moondagger artillery fire must have been heavy and accurate. The smoldering Alliance vehicles had been burned beyond belief.
With a scattering of fleeing Gunslingers, Valentine joined the route away from the riverbank, running as though hell itself followed.
Another Kentucky disaster to add to his list. At least Southern Command wasn't involved with this one, and at best it would be a minor, two-paragraph notation in the newspapers.
Valentine made it over the hill, and suddenly the trees were thinner and he was into pasture.
He pulled up. A long line of foxholes and headlogs and machine-gun nests stood before him. Behind there were piles of logs and the A-o-K's few armored cars.
This was no slapdash last line of defense but a prepared position. It was obviously quickly done. The fire lanes were imperfectly cleared and the knocked-over trees didn't have their branches trimmed as they should have, but it provided ample if imperfect cover for the reserve.
An A-o-K sergeant took Valentine back to Tikka's headquarters. Valentine heard regular reports of strength and direction coming in from observers on the ridge-she'd scared up a field-phone system from somewhere. Probably captured Moondagger equipment.
The Host came over the ridge in three attacking waves with a skirmish line trotting hard out in front, whooping and yelling. Their cries of victory as they drove the last few Alliance members like rabbits turned into confused alarm as they realized what they'd just stuck their head into.
An old trainer had once told Valentine that firefights won by just putting more SoT-shit on target-than the other guy. With the lines of riflemen backed by machine gunners, who were backed by light cannon and .50 calibers on the trucks and improvised armored cars, the Kentucky Alliance was throwing a pound of shit for every ounce hurled back by the dismayed Moondaggers.
The Gunslingers and Tikka's A-o-K had a deadly effect. Valentine saw limbs of trees and entire boles fall in the holocaust sweeping across the Kentuckians' front. What it did to the enemy could only be imagined.
They fell in rows, replaced by more men pouring up and over the hill.
"Get on up there," an Alliance captain shouted, pointing at the advancing Moondaggers.
"Go on then," Valentine called to Chieftain.
"About fuckin' time. Aiyeeeee!"
The Bear ran forward, spraying with this double-magazined assault rifle. When he emptied both ends of ammunition, he planted the gun on its long bayonet and drew his tomahawks.
Valentine settled for employing his Type Three. Duvalier, hugging a protective tree trunk like a frightened child gripping its mother, used Frat's binoculars to spot for him. Valentine squeezed shot after shot out, picking out officers for the most part.
Duvalier also seemed to be going by beard length.
They weren't men; they were funny targets in dark uniforms and hairy faces. A beard on a field radio fell. A beard firing a signal flare-down. A beard setting up a machine gun on a tripod to return fire-knocked back into the grass.
Shouts and whoops started up from the Gunslinger and A-o-K lines, and a second wave of riflemen went up and forward, passing through and over the first wave, who covered them with fire laid down on the retreating Host.