March in Country (Vampire Earth 9) - Page 120

Valentine trotted up to Frat's position with Ahn-Kha parting prairie grasses like a living snowplow.

Frat led him to a four-foot-deep ripple in the earth, closed over by oak and grasses into a shady tunnel. A line of people, anchored by a Gray One at each end, were linked by neck collars and six-foot wooden poles.

Valentine had rarely seen such ghastly restraints. The leather was filthy and rotted, with flies buzzing around dried blood caked and recaked at the edges.

"Free those people."

They looked thin and bruised. Valentine guessed the Scrubmen had kept their captives moving with lashes from thin tree limbs and yanks on the collar chain.

"Can you get anything from the Grogs?" Valentine asked.

Ahn-Kha spoke to the pair.

"They say they're on their way north," Ahn-Kha translated. "Those two, they're deserters from the Two-Mouth's army."

"Who is Two-Mouth?"

"A great man. Killer of Red-Blanket, chieftain of the Deathring Tribe. Conqueror of the Golden Ones. Ruler of Rails-between-the-Rivers."

"The Gray Baron," Valentine said.

"In too many words," Ahn-Kha said. "But when the Gray Ones get around to talking, talk they will."

"Why did they desert?"

More burbling words and emphatic gestures.

"They were part of a rail crew. They thought they were supposed to fight, not lay ties and iron," Ahn-Kha said. "They're young warrior Grogs, they want a tally of enemies, not a record of track laid. Since they couldn't fight, they fled. But Two-Mouth has a standing reward for deserters and any and all humans."

Valentine questioned the humans himself. They were two groups that had met up while fleeing the Great Plains Gulag. They'd struck the Missouri River and followed it southeast, and were planning to turn due south and head for Southern Command's forces once they dried and smoked some of the Missouri's famously oversized catfish. But the Scrubmen had smelled the drying fish and taken them prisoner.

"So, the Gray Baron has a taste for human prisoners," Valentine said.

"We must endeavor to bring him some," Ahn-Kha said.

"Like the first time we went into Omaha," Valentine said.

"Only this time, you get the cuffs."

"You'll need a woman along," Duvalier said. "I'm still young enough that they won't put me to digging ditches."

"We'll establish two camps," Valentine said. "A far one and a close one. Frat, you'll be in command of the far camp. We'll probably need to stockpile Grog trade goods to ease the journey across Missouri. Like the Scrubmen said: sweets, liquor, weapons. Some fireworks and matches might not go amiss, either. Grogs love fireworks at their celebrations. A chief that can put on a good fire show has many friends."

Frat nodded. "Yes, sir."

He turned to Duvalier. "Ali, I want you to set up a close-camp. Hopefully Ahn-Kha will be free to do a little roaming. Make contact with him and set up a communication chain back to Frat."

"Sure."

"Keep Pellwell and the ratbits with you. I may need them," Valentine said.

She made the same face she made when he had a bad case of morning gas."You're kidding, right? Her? She'll get us both killed."

"You've had it in for me from the first, Red. What's that all about?"

"You big-idea college fucks get people like me killed, that's why. Running down rumors, looking for docs that don't exist, counting baby legworms when we should be setting charges."

Ahn-Kha, with his shorn hair and wounds from the fight with the Scrubmen, looked the part of a Grog trader. He wore a pair of saddlebags on each vast shoulder with his most valuable "merchandise." Valentine, weighted down with simple trade goods on a carrying pole and wearing filthy rags taken from dead Scrubmen, followed. As a token of belonging to Ahn-Kha, Valentine wore an old license plate painted white and hanging from his head vertically. Ahn-Kha had made himself a leather wristband with the letters and numbers burned into it.

Tags: E.E. Knight Vampire Earth Fantasy
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