Valentine's Exile (Vampire Earth #5)

Valentine's Exile (Vampire Earth #5) Page 9

The Kentucky Bluegrass, September: The bluegrass itself is only blue in the mornings, and even then for the short season when the grass is flowering. The rest of the time it is a rich, deep green.

Poa pratensis arrived in Kentucky by accident, used as padding for pottery on its way west to be traded to the Shawnee. Once thoroughbreds thrived on it. They have been replaced.

Land of the dulcimer and bourbon (invented by an itinerant Baptist preacher), home to the most soothing of all American accents, Kentucky raises more than just champion livestock. Perhaps it's something in the water, for the state produces fiercely individualistic, capable folk under its chestnuts and between its limestone cuts. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born there, approximately the same distance apart as their future capitals of Washington, DC, and Richmond.

In its earliest days, the wooded hills of Kentucky were called a "dark and bloody ground." That appellation applies to Kentucky of the Kurian Order as well. The state is divided into three parts, somewhat resembling an O between two parentheses. The western parenthesis is the usual assortment of Kurian principalities bleeding the country from their towers along the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers. The eastern parenthesis is the mountains of Virginia, home to a scattering of guerrilla bands at war with each other when they're not fighting the Kurians or those in the center of the state.

The center is the most unique of all. Clans of legworm ranchers, some comprised of Grogs, some of humans, and some mixed follow their flocks-They cannot herd them; the legworms are too obstreperous and powerful to be herded, but they can be tamed and controlled under the right circumstances.

The same might be said of the riders.

"I've never seen growth like this before," Valentine said.

"You're looking at snake trails," Price said.

They stood in southern Kentucky, on a little knob of a hill looking out over a meadow. Price knew about moving cross-country. Bee usually took the lead, walking with her eerily careful grace. Then the three humans, taking turns with the compass and map to avoid getting trail-stale, followed by the mule. The mule was unusually cooperative for its breed, perhaps owing to a jaunty knit Rasta cap it wore, complete with fly-scaring dreadlocks. Valentine didn't dare look to see if the dreadlocks were simply sewn in or if they were attached to a scalp, and the mule wasn't telling. Ahn-Kha brought up the rear. At least once a day they zigged on a different course, heading north the way a sailing ship might tack against the wind.

What caught Valentine's eye about this particular meadow was the strange furrowing. Lines of thickly weeded earthen banks meandered across the field like a drunken farmer's tilling. The banks were perhaps a foot high at most, ran down little open spaces clear of smaller trees.

"That's sign left by legworm feeding."

Tchinktchinktchink-behind them Duvalier knelt over a spread out Byrdstown Clarion. The newspaper, a weekly melange of property and equipment for sale and lease, with a few stories about the achievements of local NUC youth teams, wasn't being used for the articles. Duvalier was pounding together two ancient red bricks pulled from a collapsing house, collecting the fine dust on the paper to be poured into an envelope and used as foot powder.

Bee snored next to her in the sun, her short-but-powerful legs propped up on a deadfall. The mule, a cooperative beast named Jimi, cropped grasses and tender young plants.

"I've known ground like this," Ahn-Kha said. "Older, though, more evenly grown up."

"You see, Val," Price explained, passing Valentine's binoculars back. His odor lingered on them, but Valentine pressed the sockets to his eyes anyway-after a critter inspection. "Legworms move in small herds; I've never seen over a dozen together. They pull up the sod with their mouths. They eat everything, leaf, stem, and root, and of course mice and voles and whatnot that get pulled up, then they crap it out the other end more or less constantly. The waste is pretty sweet fertilizer, and their digestive system isn't all that thorough, quantity over quality, so in the wormcast there's a lot of seeds, living roots, stuff that comes back. It grows extra lush and you get these little walls of vegetation."

"They don't mess with big trees," Valentine observed.

Price pointed at a thick oak. "They'll climb up and take some low branches. That's why some of these trees look a bit like umbrellas."

"Those trails will lead us to them, if we find fresher leavings," Ahn-Kha said.

"Sure," Price said. "Except with legworm tracks it's hard to tell which direction they're going. If you're lucky you'll come across a partially digested sapling. The way the branches get pressed down makes it like feathers in an arrow, only reversed."

Valentine wondered if it would be like Nebraska, with different "brands" sharing the same area. "How do they feel about trespassers?"

"Depends if they can make a profit off you," Price said.

They cut fresh worm sign two days later. After picking at the less-digested branches and shrubs, everyone agreed that the wide end of the cone was heading northeast.

"Five worms," Price said, counting the tracks. "Two big on the outside, three lesser in."

"Legworms mate in pairs?" Ahn-Kha asked.

"No, more like big orgies in the winter. Seriously," Price said, as Valentine raised an eybrow. "A legworm dogpile's a sight to see."

"What are we looking to get out of a bunch of worm-herders?" Duvalier asked.

Price whistled for Bee. "This is their land. I want permission to cross it. If we're lucky, they might bargain us up a mount."

"We don't have much to offer," Duvalier said.

"Your body is already spoken for," Price said.

"I've got some strong soap in my bag," she said. "Use it and I'll keep up my end."

"I thought humans made love face-to-face," Ahn-Kha said. Valentine wasn't sure he'd heard right until he looked at his friend. Even Price knew him well enough by now to know that one ear up, one ear out meant he was joking.

Catching up to the legworms wasn't as easy as having a clear trail made it sound. When moving without eating, a legworm goes at a pace faster than a horse's walk, similar to the Tennessee walking horse's famous six to twelve miles per hour run-walk. According to Price, they could pull up turf at a good three miles an hour, a typical walk for a human. A human on a sidewalk who isn't loaded down with pack and gun.

So they moved as fast as they could through the warm fall day, sweating and swearing at each new hill. Price and Valentine decided the course was arcing somewhat northerly, so they took a chance and tried to cut across the chord of the arc.

They never picked up the trail again. Other riders found them.

Bee pointed them out first. She dropped down on her haunches and let out a blue jay-like cry, pointing at a tree-topped hill. It took Valentine a moment to recognize what he saw. The legworm's pale yellow color was surprisingly effective camouflage in the shade of a stand of elms and oaks. Two figures sat astride it, probably human.

"Everyone wait here," Price said.

"Feels too much like a standoff," Valentine said. "Why not all go?"

"If you like, but as strangers we've got to approach unarmed." He unslung his Kalashnikov, held it up over his head, then placed it on the ground. He made a motion toward Bee and she sat next to his gun.

"Feel like showing off your famous charm school repertoire?" Valentine asked Duvalier. Behind them, Ahn-Kha kept a hand on Jimi the mule's halter.

"No. If there's a problem I like to disappear fast without anyone getting a good look at me."

"I shall stay back as well," Ahn-Kha said.

Valentine placed his U-gun on the grassy ground and set the pistol on top of it. He had to jog to catch up with Price.

"Let me do the talking, Val," Price warned as he lit his pipe. "They're tetchy around strangers."

"Any particular reason for it?"

Sweat ran lightly down the greasy dirt on his face. Price's filth was semi-waterproof, as impervious to rain as an oilskin. "Nobody likes them much. Most folks in the civilized world-beg your pardon, but that's how Tennesseans see it, stuck between corn-likker-swilling guerillas west and east-avoid them like they carry a bad fungus.

"Even the churchies keep clear, except a few unreformed Jesus-pushers."

"Why do the Kurians let them be?"

"They get loads over the mountains, one way or another. Between the New York corridor and Chattanooga precious little moves by train; the lines are always getting attacked by guerillas, and you have to pay through the nose per pound. A legworm can haul as much cargo as a railcar. They and their brothers in Virginia are the main east-west smuggling artery for the whole Midwest. Not that they don't do legitimate runs too."

They hopped across two old wormtrails, little more than hummocks of summer-dried weeds, and entered the woods. Evergreens staked out their claims among the tough oaks and smooth-skinned hackberrys.

The two men astride the sixty-foot segmented worm wore black leathers fitted with an assortment of barbs like oversized fishhooks. A third had dismounted and stood near the front of their beast, a burlap sack of potato peelings and pig corn thrown under its nose. All three men wore their hair long, tied down in back and then flared out like a foxtail. All were on the grubby side, but didn't make an art form out of it like their guide.

Valentine had never seen a live legworm at rest. Its "legs" were hundreds of tiny, paired, black clawlike legs, running down the bottom of its fleshy hide like a millipede's. Oversized versions of the claws, growing larger even as the front of the worm grew thinner, pulled up the corn and the earth beneath, stuffing it into a bilateral mouth. Scimitar-like tusks, facing each other like crab claws, stuck out the front

"That's close enough, stranger," said the second man.

"Friendly call, high rider," Price said. "I'm Hoffman Price, friend to the Bulletproof, Worm Wildcats, and the Uttercross."

"We're Bulletproof."

"I know," Price said. "That's why I listed you first."

"Story!" the second man said. "And if it ain't, you know we don't like bums-"

"I know him, Zak," the one with the corncobs said, dropping his sack. He had a little gray in his red-brown hair, and a little more flesh around his middle. "He's no bum. He came and got that Swenson newbie. Maybe four years back. That Colt the Dispatcher carries, he got it from him."

"You wanna vouch for him, Cookie?" the one who'd been called Zak said.

"I'm just saying the Dispatcher knows him, is all."

"Where can I find the Dispatcher?" Price asked. "Is it still Dalian?"

Zak took a drink from a water bottle and passed it back. "Sure is. He's east. Soon as we've eaten we're moving on fast."

"Will you let us ride tail? Three human, two Grog. Mule in tow."

"You might be riding into trouble," Zak said. "One of our pods got jumped. The Dispatcher sent out a call."

"Our guns will secure the Bulletproof, as long as we enjoy the BulletprooPs hospitality," Price said. "You can count us on your side of the worm."

The man behind Zak pointed with a fingerless-gloved hand. "You know the words, but that don't mean much to me."

"He says he wants business with the Dispatcher, that's good enough for me," Zak said. "You can ride tail. Enjoy the music back there."

"Thank you, high rider," Price said. He touched Valentine and they turned.

"What did we just agree to?" Valentine asked.

"When you ride with the Bulletproof-any of the legworm tribes, really-you enjoy their hospitality. But you're expected to stand with them in any kind of a confrontation."

"You mean fight."

"Don't worry. When two tribes get into a feud they each line up on either side of an open field. There's a sporting match like lacrosse only with two contestants; all you have to do is cheer."

"What kind of feud?"

"Could be anything. Usually it's feeding ground. One group allegedly goes in another's area. It's hazy at best. About a third of Kentucky's divided up between the tribes. If they're caught, it's called an arrest but it boils down to being taken hostage. So they hold a contest. If the 'intruder' side wins, the hostages and their worms are released. If the 'intruded' side wins, a ransom and restitution are paid."

"Sounds rather civilized," Valentine said.

"Again, except for yelling, you won't have to do much."

Zac, Gibson-the man behind Zak-and Cookie gave them a quick legworm riding lesson, and issued them each a cargo hook and a climbing goad.

The cargo hook resembled a pirate's replacement hand, hanging from a chain whose links were wide enough for the attachment of lines. They used a pair to attach a long lead to the mule. The goad resembled a mountaineer's pickstaff, with a crowbarlike digger at one end and a long spike at the other. To mount the legworm, you plunged your goad into one of the many thick patches of dead skin-the worm's skin reminded Valentine of fiberglass insulation-and lifted yourself up to a height where a buddy could pull you the rest of the way up. Under no circumstances were you to use one of the longish whisker spikes projecting here and there from newer patches of skin in cracks between the dead material.

"They'll twist good if you grab a whisker," Cookie explained.

"Do they ever roll?" Valentine asked, though he knew the answer.

"Only if they're hurt," Zak said. "You abandon ship quick if that happens."

Bee went first. She plunged her goad hook up high, almost at the top of the worm thanks to her reach, then swung up on pure arm muscle. She accepted the rifles, then helped Price up, who then aided Valentine and Duvalier in their climbs. Ahn-Kha eschewed his goad; he stuck the implement between his teeth and jumped up, grabbing great handfuls of spongy skin, and clambered up with his toes.

"That's how the Grey Ones in the west mount," Ahn-Kha said. He attached his wood-framed pack, plunged the chained cargo hook into the creature's back, then casually gripped the chain with his long toes. Only the Grogs could sit astride the worm's broad back; the humans rode in a leaning sidesaddle fashion.

"Just like you're on a flying carpet," Cookie said. He looked at the strangers' faces. "None of you have heard of a flying carpet? Ignorants!"

"Everybody set?" Zak called back. His head was visible over the cargo netting holding down the trio's supplies.

"All-top and rigged," Price called.

"A lot of us don't say that anymore," Gibson said. "We just say 'yeah.' Try it, tender-thighs."

Zak reached back with a pole capped by something like an oversized legworm goad with a point on the end and stuck the hook down between the legs. That part of the legworm, right under Gibson, gave a little rise and they started ahead.

"You can stop bellyaching that people who aren't one of us aren't one of us anytime, Gib," Zak said, too quietly for anyone but Valentine to hear.

After the initial jerk of motion, the legworm ride made a believer out of Valentine. Whatever the legs were doing below, up top the creature simply glided as though riding on an air cushion. Little changes in the topography came up through the beast with all the discomfort of a cushioned rocking chair.

The mule was all too happy to follow behind without his pack.

Zak continued, "For all you know the gal's being brought to a tribe wedding, or the scarred guy's the Casablancan Minister of the Great Oval Office and Rosegarden traveling incognitpick. So be a good tribe or be silent."

Normally Valentine would be a little embarrassed at overhearing a dressing-down. Except he didn't like Gibson. But good manners won out and he diverted his hearing elsewhere: to the steady staccatto crunch of the fast-falling legs. He'd forgotten how strange legworms sounded. Marbles poured out of a bag in a steady stream onto a pile of crumpled paper, as Evan Pankow, a veteran Wolf, had described it in his first year of training.

The gentle motion of the legworm relaxed Valentine.

"You guys ever sleep up here?" Valentine asked.

"Only one at a time," Cookie called. "Other two have to keep each other alert."

The beast must have dipped its nose-if nose was the right word for the scowlike front end-and scooped a car-hood-sized divot from the earth with its tusks. Zak employed his legworm crook again and worked one of his three reins.

With the legworm in motion the "music" they'd been told to expect started. Like a massive balloon deflating, the beast dropped a cemetery-plot-sized mass of compost behind.

Valentine cautiously took a whiff. All he could smell was Price, and the other people and Grogs.

"Be thankful for small favors," he said to Duvalier as another colossal fart sounded like the horn of Jericho. The mule gave a start.

"It's always loud at startup," Price said. "Gas gets built up while it stands still. Give it a minute and you'll just hear a plop now and then as it makes a deposit."

Duvalier planted herself on the legworm's spongy back, holding her hook under her chin. "I don't mind at all if it means traveling off my feet."

Valentine wished he could see the reins better. The Grog's he'd encountered in Oklahoma used four, two set to either side. The men of the Bulletproof used three, one on each side and one up top. Valentine made a mental note to ask Zak about its utility.

He learned that and a great deal more at the dinner break. This time Zak fed the legworm on bags of peanut shells and ground-up acorn. Price's mule liked the smell of the nuts and joined in, chomping contentedly but rather messily compared to the legworm, who took earth, sod, and shell together in a single gulp.

"If we have to move fast, most of what we carry is food for the mount," Zak said. His face and forearms had dozens of tiny scars.

"How do you make it turn?"

Zak pointed to the rein. A metal loop projected from the beast.

"Yes, but what does that do?"

"Oh, you want the science teacher version? Well, a worm's such a big bastard, there's not much we can do that'll influence it. So we make it think that all its motions are its idea. All those whiskers are wired, so to speak, to an organ under the skin on either side that looks a little like an accordion. When it turns, to keep from rubbing against a tree or whatever, the accordion contracts and it turns. That rein is attached to the accordion, and when we pull it closed the beast turns."

"And keeping the nose up?"

"It's got a balancing organ kind of like your ear in the top of its front end. A little jerk makes it feel like it's out of balance, so it'll stick its head straight forward until the organ feels back in equilibrium. But if they're fed regularly they don't graze all the time. They don't need all that much if it's fair-quality feed. All the dirt they pull up in the wild is a lot of wasted effort."

"How does it breathe?"

"That's something. Here." Zak's leathers creaked as he squatted next to it. "Look underneath. That lighter flesh? We call that the 'membrane' but it's actually a good two feet thick. That thing gets oxygen into its bloodstream. Water don't make much of a difference, but they get sluggish as hell and try to find high ground- though sometimes swamp water will kill them."

"I've never seen one this close."

"Where you from?"

"Iowa. Got out young. My dad worked for, you know-"

Zak nodded. "Me too. Indiana. Practically grew up under a tower. The P worked electricity. Cool stuff, but not if you're reporting to one of those pale-assed jumpers twice a day."

"I left home at eleven," Valentine said. "Ugly scene."

"So what does the flea-ranch over there want with the Bulletproof?"

"I'm just trying to get from point A to point B."

"We'll be at camp a little after sundown. Don't fall off."

Gib drove the legworm a little faster through open country. After a few unheeded yawlps, the mule trotted behind to avoid being dragged. The rolling blue hills left off and they climbed onto the beginning of a plateau, where they gave man, grog, and mule a breather. Valentine saw wooded mountaintops in the distance.

"Keep your guns handy," Zak warned as night fell, looking over the landscape with a monocular. "There are guerillas in those mountains."

They struck a road and followed it to a waypoint town of a dozen empty homes, unless you counted barn owls and mice, a couple of hollow corner bars, and an overgrown gas station and market once dependent on the farm clientele.

Valentine marked fresh legworm furrows everywhere. Some ran right up to the road surface before bouncing off like a ricocheting bullet.

They passed up a rise, and a boy standing guard over the road and his bicycle waved them toward a commanding-looking barn. A pile of weedy rubble that might once have been a house stood close to the road, and a crisscross of torn earth emanated from it. Valentine guessed that from a low-flying plane the landscape would look like an irregular spiderweb. Legworms stood everywhere, pale blue billboards in the moonshine.

"Who's that with you, Zak?" a man afoot called.

"Visitors looking for the Dispatcher. I'm vouching, and I'll bring 'em in. Where is he?"

"Up in the barn."

Zak turned around, an easy operation on the wide back of the legworm. "We're here, folks. You'll have to leave your guns, of course."

"Urn, how do we ... ?" Duvalier asked.

"Get a newbie pole, Royd," Cookie called down.

"No, I'll help," Ahn-Kha said, sliding down the tapered tail. He lifted an arm to Duvalier. "Here."

Valentine jumped down, as did Bee and Price.

"Why not just jump?" Valentine asked Duvalier quietly. "I've seen you dive headfirst from two stories."

"Just a helpless lil' ol' thing without a big man around, Val," Duvalier said. "No harm in having them think that, anyway."

They got out of the lane and made a pile of their weapons and packs.

"Coffee's by the fire pit. Toilet holes are up in the old house," Zak said. "There's a lime barrel, so send down a chaser. Let me know when you're ready to see the Dispatcher."

"Bee-guard!" Price said to his assistant.

"Doesn't she have to use the toilet pits?" Duvalier asked.

"She's not shy," Price said. "And she always buries."

"I would just as soon not scoot my hindquarters on the grass," Ahn-Kha said.

Cookie stretched. "There's plenty of New Universal Church Improved Testaments up there. Help yourself."

Valentine wanted coffee more than anything. Duvalier took her walking stick and headed for the rubbled house.

They'd missed dinner, but a line of stretchers propped up on barrels still held bread and roast squash. Sweating teenage girls washed utensils in boiling water as a gray-haired old couple supervised from behind glowing pipes.

"Coffee?" Valentine asked.

"That pot, stranger," one of the girls said, tucking stray hair into a babushka. Valentine took a tin cup out of the hot wash water, choosing a mild scalding over the used cups tossed on the litters and plywood panels, and shook it dry.

It was real coffee. Not the Jamaican variety he'd grown regrettably used to while with Malia at Jayport, but real beans nonetheless. He liked the Bulletproofs even better.

The surge of caffeine brought its own requirements. He remembered to chase it down the hole leading to the unimaginable basement chamber with a ladle of lime.

McDonald R. Dalian, Dispatcher for the Bulletproof, was viewing babies he hadn't met yet when the Price-Valentine mission entered his barn.

The barn was a modern, cavernous structure that had survived its half century of inattention in remarkably good shape, thanks to its concrete foundation and aluminum construction. Small chemical lightsticks Valentine had heard called Threedayers in the Trans-Mississippi Combat Corps hung from the rafter network above.

Men, women, and children of the Bulletproof, most in their black leathers or denim, sat atop defunct, stripped farm machinery to watch Dispatcher Dalian hold court.

A half-dozen guitars, two banjos, and a dulcimer provided music from one corner. Another end of the bar had been turned into a food storage area; shelves had been cleared of odds and ends and replaced by sacks of corn and barrels of flour. A laundry also seemed to be in operation, with clothes and diapers drying on lines strung between stripped combines and the wall.

The Dispatcher had indeterminate features-a little Asian, and maybe a dash of Irish or African for curly hair, and a great high prow of a nose. Except for the curly hair, he reminded Valentine of his father, especially around the protruding ears and out-thrust jaw. He cooed over a sleeping baby as the proud mother and father looked on.

"She's grabbing my finger even while she's sleeping," the Dispatcher said. "Don't tell me she won't be a lead high rider some day."

The Dispatcher and the father of the child bumped their fists, knuckle to knuckle.

The flying buttress nose went up and turned. "Air strike! Only one living thing on the planet smells like that." He handed the baby back and turned. "Hoffman Z. Price has returned."

Price had his usual six-foot circle of solitude around him, even in the busy barn. "And grateful for the generosity of the Bulletproof, Dispatcher."

The Dispatcher opened a tin. "Tobacco?"

Price extracted his pipe and the Dispatcher took a pinch. "You picked your moment. We've got the better part of the tribe together."

"Is worm meat still profitable in Lexington?" Price asked.

"You're innocent of the ways of the trading pits as well as soap, brother. That den of moneychangers and Pharisees takes my meat and my belief in human goodness. I kid, I kid. But if it weren't for the Grogs in Saint Louis I'd be bankrupt. So I hope you're feeling generous. If I have another fugitive in my tribe I'll drive a harder bargain."

Valentine found himself liking the Dispatcher, even if he could be categorized as a Quisling and had a touch of tentpole-revivalist singsong to his words. There was no "step into my office," and as far as he could tell no retinue of subordinates and bodyguards one might expect of a feudal lord. The man carried out his business in the center of his people; any interested eye or curious ear could hear the latest.

A boy brought a spittoon made from an old motorcycle helmet.

Price pointed to Valentine. "I'm looking for a ride to the Ohio for five. We need food for same. Myself, Bee, David here, his friend Ali, and another Grog, an emissary from the Omaha area named Ahn-Kha."

Ahn-Kha didn't claim any titles, though in Valentine's opinion he deserved many. Valentine had to hand it to Price for adding a lot of sizzle to what was probably a very unappetizing steak.

"What does the job pay?"

"Two gold justices. Fort Knox mint."

"Hard currency. Lovely. But it won't pay for the kind of numbers you'd need to get up there safely. There are towers along the Ohio. That could be a dangerous trip, and the Bulletproof have no friends north of Lexington. I'll have to see if I can find you a lead rider willing to hazard a one-worm excursion."

"You seem to have most of them here. That man Zak seems capable."

"He is. I'll speak to him after tomorrow's challenge. He's a bit distracted at the moment. His sister was the lead rider for the legworm that started all this."

"Where should we camp?" Price asked.

"Bed down where you like, but keep clear of the campfires around that farm across the fields to the east. That's the Wildcat camp."

"May we use your laundry, sir?" Valentine asked. Everything he owned was long overdue for more than just a streamside rinse.

"Of course, umm, David," the Dispatcher said. "Our soap is yours. Did you hear me, Hoffman?"

As they walked back to collect the others Valentine had one more question for Price.

"I didn't know you could eat legworms. Even in the Ozarks we couldn't stomach it."

"You have to butcher them fast. The meat can be ground into pig feed. But there are other ways. Didn't you ever have a Ribstrip?"

Valentine remembered the preprocessed barbecued meat from his days masquerading as a Coastal Marine and in Solon's shortlived TMCC. Placed in a hard roll with onions and pickle relish, it was a popular sandwich.

"You don't mean-"

"Yeah. You put enough barbecue sauce on you can hide the taste. Ribstrips are ground and pressed legworm."

Human instinct is to join a crowd, and Valentine gave in to it the next morning. Everyone in the party save Duvalier came along to watch events.

At breakfast, mixing with the Bulletproofs, he'd learned a good deal about what to expect out of the contest. The challenge was fairly simple, a mixture of lacrosse and one-on-one basketball.

The two sides lined up at either end of an agreed field, roughly a thousand yards apart. At the Bulletproofs side, a line of short construction stakes with red blasting tape stood about ten yards out from the crowd, and the only one at the line was the Dispatcher.

Valentine decided there was probably an interesting story having to do with the rifle range of an experienced marksman behind it, but didn't press the issue. The two contestants each went to the center of the field, carrying only a legworm starting hook. The referee, usually either a medical man or a member of the clergy, would be in the center of the field with a basketball. He or she would toss it high enough in the air to dash out of the way before it came back into crook-swinging distance, and the contest would end when one contestant brought the basketball to his side.

"Why a basketball?" Valentine asked a Bulletproof rider who was also explaining the rules to his young son. Nothing was happening yet. The Dispatcher and some of his riders were meeting their opposite numbers in the Wildcats, presumably negotiating the recompense that would be paid.

"You know the answer, Firk. Tell him," the father suggested.

The boy shook his head and shrank against his father. Valentine turned away to save the boy embarrassment and looked out across the dew-spangled field, recently hayed. Opportunistic spiders had woven their webs on the stalks, creating tiny pieces of art like cut glass in the lingering summer sunshine. Some operational farms still existed in this part of Kentucky. Valentine wondered how they ran off grazing legworms.

"It's about the size of a worm egg," the father explained. "That, and basketballs are easy finds."

"No other rules?" Valentine asked.

"I see where you're going. You can't bring anything but the crook. You're stripped down to your skivvies to make sure. Not even shoes."

"Does one ever try to just brain the other and then walk back to the home side with the ball?"

"You get that sometimes, but both sides hate a plain old brawl. Slugging's no way to pump up your mojo, or your tribe's."

A stir of excitement broke out in the crowd when a wandering wild, or unreined, legworm dug a feeding tray toward the challenge field. A pair of legworms with riders hustled out at full speed for a legworm, about the rate of a trotting horse. By judicious use of the mount's bulk, the furrow was redirected.

By the time that ended the two parties had returned from the center of the challenge field. The Dispatcher looked downcast.

Valentine edged closer to the center of the line of people, but many others had the same idea.

He couldn't hear through the babble. "What's up?" people called.

Word passed quickly in ever-expanding circles. "The Wildcat challenger is a Grog! Some kind of import!"

"Ringer!"

"Damn them."

"Take a knee, everyone!" someone bellowed.

Everyone but the Dispatcher sat down. He looked around, nodded to a few, and spoke out to the squash field of foxtailed heads.

"Yes, you heard right. They've got a big Grog they're using in the challenge. Biggest one I've ever seen-even standing on all fours he's bigger than me."

Valentine judged the Dispatcher at about six-three. Ahn-Kha's size. Could there be another Golden One wandering the Cumberland Plateau?

"I saw a man challenge a Grog when I was eight," a well-muscled, shirtless man said, presumably the contestant, as everyone else had jackets or knits against the cool of the morning-warming fast as the sun rose.

"I remember that one," the Dispatcher said. "Fontrain died from his injuries. There's bad blood for this one. According to their Dispatcher, Tikka killed a man when she got taken into custody. Could be they're looking for payback.

"We're going to forfeit," he continued. "It's a hell of a ransom, but I'm not risking Tuck's head over a challenge."

"Might be a bluff," the shirtless man, presumably Tuck, said. "They're trying to get you to fold up by showing you a big, mean Grog. I'll go out there. It's my skull."

"And end up like Fontrain?" the Dispatcher said. "No."

"That means a feud," a craggy-faced woman sitting cross-legged next to Valentine said to everyone and no one. "Oh Lord, lord."

Valentine stood up. "Sir, I'll take a whack at this Grog."

Hundreds of heads turned in his direction. The Dispatcher straightened.

"You ever even held a legworm crook, son?"

"I've played grounders with Grogs," Valentine said, which wasn't quite true. He'd whacked a ball around with a cross between a hockey stick and a cricket bat a few times as Ahn-Kha taught him the fundamentals of the Grog game, and ended up bruised at all compass points.

Consternation broke out in the crowd; much of it sounded approving. "What do we have to lose?" "Leastways if he gets his head bashed in, it's no feud."

"Can we trust you, um, David?" the Dispatcher asked.

"I don't see how you can lose. You're ready to forfeit. Worst thing that could happen is that you pay the ransom anyway and get your riders back."

"Let David do it," the woman next to him called. "Let him take that Goliath."

The crowd liked the sound of that.

"Okay, boy, strip down and grab your crook."

"I've got one request, Dispatcher."

McDonald R. Dalian's eyes narrowed. "What's that?"

"Can I borrow a pair of underwear? Mine aren't fit for public display."

The crowd laughed.

Valentine stood behind a blanket held up by Ahn-Kha as he stripped.

Zak held out a white pair of shorts. "They look a little odd but they're the best thing for riding. They're military issue up in Indiana for their bike troops. Everything stays tucked up real tight."

"Thank you."

As he tried on the shorts Ahn-Kha spoke. "My David, let me try my luck at this."

"I'm from Minnesota, old horse. Born with a hockey stick in my hand."

"Then you will be careful out there."

"Since when am I anything but?"

"In what year were you born?" Ahn-Kha asked, ears askew.

"Be careful. If it is a Grey One, when they are on all fours and running they cannot turn their heads, or hear very well behind. He will not see you if you come at him from the side."

Neither would a freight train, Valentine thought. Doesn't mean I can bodychecI{ it off its course.

"Understood," Valentine said.

Price paced back and forth as Bee pulled up and chewed on dandelion roots. Valentine wondered where Duvalier had gone. But then a sporting event, even one as deadly serious as this, probably wasn't of interest to her.

The shorts were snug-fitting, running from his waist to mid thigh. The padded white pouch at the groin made him feel like one of the come-hither boys that strutted on the streets of New Orleans.

"Oh, that's cute," Price said.

"Better than the ones with three weeks of trail."

Ahn-Kha dropped the blanket and walked with Valentine, Price, and Bee to the center of the line of spectators. Valentine walked barefoot, testing the field's soil. Some murmured about the burns on his lower back and legs. The Dispatcher stood at the center of the line with the twelve-foot legworm crook, looking like a warrior out of some medieval tapestry.

"I can still order it called off," the Dispatcher said, the words just loud enough to travel to Valentine.

"I can't resist a challenge," Valentine said.

"Well, you look fit enough, 'cept for the limp. Hope you can run.

"I can run," Valentine said.

He tried the crook, an all-wood version of the one he'd seen Zak use. Its hooked end had a rounded point.

"Using metal isn't considered sporting," the Dispatcher said.

Damn, it's awkward. Like a vaulting pole.

"Any rule on length?" Valentine asked.

"Yes, it can't be over fifteen feet."

"How about, say, seven?"

"You must be joking. A Grog can already outreach you. You'll just be cutting yourself shorter."

"I'd rather swing a handy short crook than an awkward long one.

The crowd broke out in consternation when Ahn-Kha buried his old TMCC utility machete into the haft of the crook where Valentine indicated, and broke it over his knee.

Valentine tried the crook again. Now he could run with it.

Five hundred yards away, in the center of the field, the Grog waited. He looked huge even at this distance.

"Good luck, David," the Dispatcher said.

"Is anyone taking odds?" Valentine asked.

"You don't want to know," Price said.

"All you have to do is get the ball back to our line," the Dispatcher said. Valentine marked the stakes, stretching a hundred yards to either side, with the crowd spread out behind. "How you do it's up to you."

Valentine looked at Ahn-Kha. The Golden One's ears twitched in anxiety, but one of the great limpid eyes winked.

Valentine raised his arm to the crowd and turned to walk into the center of the field, stretching his arms and legs as he went. The legworm ride yesterday had tasked his muscles in a new way, a trace of stiffness which gave him a good deal more cause to doubt. He wondered how the Bulletproof would feel about a valiant try ...

The "referee" wore taped-up glasses and a modest crucifix. He carried a basketball under his arm, and leaned over to speak to the Grog as Valentine approached the halfway point. Valentine noticed a pistol in a holster, with a lanyard running up to the referee's neck.

The Grog rivaled Ahn-Kha in size, almost as tall and a good deal wider of shoulder and longer of arm. Pectoral muscles like Viking roundshields twitched as he shifted his half ton of weight from side to side. The Grog's legworm crook lay before his massive hands as though to establish a line Valentine would never cross.

"You're Tuck?" the referee asked.

"Change of programming," Valentine said. "I'm David."

"David, your Wildcat opponent is Vista. Vista, your Bulletproof opponent is David. Don't touch me or you forfeit. Interference by anyone else also results in a forfeit for the interfering side. This mark"-he indicated a pair of flat river stones-"is the center of the field, agreed to by your respective Dispatchers."

The Grog yawned, displaying a mellon-sized gullet guarded by four-inch yellow incisors, capped with steel points, top and bottom. The great, double-thumbed hand picked up the long crook.

The referee held out the basketball. "The object of the contest is to get this ball to your own line. The game begins when the ball hits the ground, and ends when the winner brings it home to his own goal line. I'll fire my pistol in the air to indicate a victory."

Valentine noted the hook on Vista's crop had been chewed to a sharpened point, and hoped that his intestines wouldn't end up draped over the loop at some point.

"Any questions?" the referee finished, stepping to the two stones in the center.

Neither said anything. Vista glared at Valentine. Valentine stared back. The referee held out the ball between them, and when he lowered it for the bounce-toss the Grog was looking away.

"May the best. . . ummm . . . contestant win."

The referee tossed the basketball straight up into the air and backpedaled out from between man and Grog, quickly enough that Valentine felt air move.

Valentine heard a faint sound like a distant waterfall and realized it was cheering, cut with a few whistles. He felt not at all encouraged, and took a few steps back out of clobbering range as Vista raised his crook-No sense getting my head knocked off the second the ball hits.

The damn thing took forever to fall. Was it filled with helium?

The ball struck. Valentine's brain registered that it took a Wildcat bounce, helped along by a quick swing of Vista's crook that Valentine didn't have the length to intercept.

But Vista went for him instead of the ball. The Grog leaped forward, using one of his long arms as a decathlete might use a pole, and upon landing swung his crook for-

The air occupied by Valentine. If Vista didn't want the ball, Valentine would take it. Valentine sprinted after the ball, now rolling at a very shallow angle toward the Bulletproof on its second bounce.

The instinct to just go toe-to-toe with Vista and decide the contest in a brawl surged for a moment. But he'd lose. Valentine looked back to see Vista galloping toward the ball, crook clenched at the midpoint in those wide jaws. Grogs running on all fours looked awkward, but they were damn fast-

Valentine cut an intercepting course.

Vista, you messed up-the Grog's crook had the hook end on Valentine's side. Taking great lungfuls of air, Valentine poured it on. He reached forward with his own hook, Vista's head invisible behind the mountainous shoulders-

-and latched his hook to Vista's. Valentine planted his feet to bring the racing Grog down the way a cowboy would turn a cow's head.

The field smacked Valentine in the face as he landed, yanked off his feet by five times his weight in charging Grog. The crook slipped away like a snake.

By the time he looked up again Vista had retrieved Valentine's crook, and used it to give the ball a whack, sending it farther toward the Wildcat line. Vista left off the contest. Instead of following the ball to a likely victory he advanced on Valentine, long crook in his left hand, held hook out, and Valentine's shorter one looking like a baton in the right. Apparently the Wildcat Dispatcher wanted to teach the Bulletproof a lesson.

You wily gray bastard. You suckered me!

Animal triumph shone in Vista's eyes. Valentine tasted blood from a cut lip. The referee ran across the periphery of Valentine's vision, moving for a better angle on events.

Valentine stood up, swiping the dirt from his knees as he watched Vista advance, and ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth.

Vista raised his twin weapons and bellowed, stamping his feet and banging the crooks together.

Valentine raised his middle finger in return.

The Grog knew what that meant. It charged, wild-eyed.

Valentine ran away.

He felt the long crook tug at his hair and ran harder. Vista couldn't sprint with weapons in his hands, so the Grog paused. Valentine used the precious second to achieve some distance, then settled into his old, pounding Wolf run, pretended his aching left leg didn't exist.

Vista gained on him, slowly, but only by sprinting full tilt. And the Grog couldn't breathe as well with two crooks crammed into its bear-trap-like mouth. Valentine slowed a little, listening to the footfalls behind, but didn't dare look back; a trip and a sprawl would be fatal.

Vista slowed. The Grog's eyes no longer blazed, but were clouded by new doubt, and it came to a halt perhaps a hundred yards from the Bulletproof line.

A shout from somewhere in the line: "Hrut kp-ahhh mreh!"

Valentine glanced back and saw Ahn-Kha, making a sawing motion with one of his mighty arms.

Vista screamed back, words or pure rage, Valentine couldn't tell. Vista dashed off at an angle southward, running an oblique course for the Wildcat line.

Got you now!

Valentine's crook spun past his nose and he sidestepped-and caught it as it bounced in the air. This time he heard the cheers clearly. With fresh energy he tore toward the Wildcat side and the distant ball, hidden by a gentle fold in the earth.

Sorry, Vista. You'll keep your temper next time.

But the Grog had unguessed-at reserves. It pounded up behind Valentine, sounding like a galloping horse. Valentine risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Vista running in a two-leg, one-, arm canter, the long crook raised to catch him-

Vista swung and Valentine blocked. Valentine shielded his back against another blow and hurried on, then got a painful rap on the knuckles that opened his hand, and he lost his crook for the second time.

He could run better without it anyway.

Now for a real burn.

Valentine ran, extending his sprint. Were he still a fresh Wolf of twenty-two with an uninjured leg he would have left Vista gaping behind. As it was he increased the distance, but only just.

The ball would be an awkward thing to carry. Under his arm he wouldn't be able to run with a proper stride; held in each hand he'd be running upright, not a natural human motion. He could -kick it, but what if he mistimed an approach and missed? If only he had a satchel . . .

Valentine spotted the ball and changed his angle. Vista slowed behind him, perhaps conserving his wind to intercept Valentine on his sprint back. Even more distance yawned between them.

The referee caught up on both of them.

Valentine reached the ball and the Wildcats booed. He ignored the catcalls.

Vista pulled up, perhaps forty yards away, and blew air like an idling train engine. He left ample room to cut an intercepting course.

Valentine dropped his shorts. Someone on the Wildcat side had enough of a sense of humor to whistle, a twittering wolf whistle.

He picked up the ball and stuffed it into the elastic waistband, then closed most of the waist in his fist. The ball was too big to go out the leg holes.

Vista cocked his head, oddly doglike with ears outstretched.

Holding the ball in the improvised sack, Valentine ran straight at him.

The Grog, perhaps fearing another trick, widened his stance and rocked back and forth, crook held loosely in his right hand.

At three strides away Valentine feinted right, away from the crook-then leaped.

He tucked the ball into his belly as he flew through the air, not wanting it batted away as he went over Vista's head in a great Cat leap.

It swung its crook where Valentine should have been.

Valentine landed lightly on his good leg, had a bad split second when Vista's thrown crook struck him in the ankle, and ran, feeling rapidly growing pain from the blow.

Valentine managed to open the distance between them, and Vista let out a strangled, winded cry.

The Bulletproof danced and shouted behind their markers, some urging him on by circling their arms in wheels toward the red tape.

Valentine crossed the line-a gunshot sounded, and old instincts made him flinch-and fell into a mass of Bulletproofs. He felt a sharp slap on his bare buttock, and looked to see the craggy-faced woman giving him a gap-toothed grin.

Valentine turned to look at his opponent. Vista collapsed to his wide knees, pounding at the turf with great fists. He took the basketball out of his underwear, gave up trying to reach the Dispatcher, and tossed the ball in the air.

Limping, Valentine went out to Vista. The Grog jumped up, snarling.

Valentine offered his hand.

The Grog snatched him up by the arm and lowered his head with mouth gaping to bite it off at the wrist. Another shot sounded and the Grog pulled back, a bleeding hole in its cheek.

Valentine spun out of reach.

The referee trotted up, pistol held pointed at the Grog. "Back to our side! Back!"

The Grog emptied a nostril at the referee and turned away.

The referee lowered his gun, looked at Valentine from beneath a sweat-dripping brow. "You, sir, are one dumb son of a bitch. Congratulations."

"Thank you," Valentine said, rubbing his wrist.

Ahn-Kha loomed up. "My David!"

"I'm fine. A little bruised."

The Dispatcher and Zak joined them, the former with the basketball, the latter holding Valentine's clothes.

"What did you yell?" Valentine asked, remembering the scream from the sidelines. "He forgot all about me."

"I accused his mother of the lowest-caste choice of mates," Ahn-Kha said. "Such an insult can only result in a duel. He started to answer me when you ran."

"Maybe you'd better stay in camp when David goes to collect his share."

"Share?" Valentine asked.

"You won. A portion of the recovered herd is yours."

"And I owe you a great debt," Zak said. "Dispatcher, may I go along and collect my sister?"

"Go in my place. But keep away from the Grog. One blood contest a season is enough."

The Wildcats fell back from their side of the field as they crossed, Valentine holding the basketball up as though it were a torch per Zak's instruction.

A huge legworm, longer than the one Valentine had ridden into the Bulletproof camp, led six unreined worms onto the contest field. Valentine watched them pull up soil, weeds, and hay stubble like plows.

Three riders sat astride the broad back, in the "flying carpet" sidesaddle-seat Valentine was beginning to recognize.

"That's Tikka, she's the reiner," Zak said.

Tikka had sun-washed, caramel-colored hair, plumed into a lusher version of the foxtail her brother wore, and the tan, wind-burned face of a woman who seldom knew a roof. The man behind her was shirtless, with bandages wrapped around his midsection. The third rider, a beefy, gray-haired woman, evidently kept the tradition of the third rider being older.

"Watch the whiskers on the unreined legworms," Zak advised Valentine. "Tikka! Look at the trouble you caused," he called.

She dismissed him with a wave. "Talk to the herd."

Zak turned to Valentine. "The Dispatcher won't allow us to ride together. Too many brawls."

"I thought it was cousins who liked to fight in these parts."

Zak winked. "Fight... or kiss. Fact is, I don't feel guilty about either. I'm adopted."

Valentine spent the day mildly worried. Duvalier had tucked a note in his pack

Checking out the other camp

Back tonight

-Meeyao

and had not returned.

Valentine found himself a minor celebrity in the camp. As he limped around on his sore ankle, Bulletproof children came up and bumped him with their fists and elbows. He explored the camp with Price, trying to stave off the coming stiffness by keeping his muscles warm. He looked at some of the carts and sledges the legworms towed. Many held loads of fodder, or sides of meat, but one, under guard near the Dispatcher's tent, had a generator and racks of military radio gear.

"There'll be a party tonight," Price said. "Weather's nice and the herders will disperse."

"The little contest this morning," Valentine said. "Does anyone ever not pay up when they lose?"

"That's why they bring together as much of the tribe as they can. Sort of like wearing your gun at a poker game."

Valentine and Ahn-Kha did laundry at the washtubs. The other Bulletproofs doing washing insisted on giving them soap flakes and the outside lines for drying their clothes. A woman carrying six months of baby under her tie-front smock hinted that Valentine would be getting some new clothes that night. "They're going round for donations," she said.

By nightfall a raucous throng of legworm herders surrounded the barn like a besieging army. Their rein-pierced mounts stood along the road ditch in lines, eating a mixture of grains and hay dumped into the ditch.

Valentine didn't feel much like joining. His legs had been filled with asphalt, his ankle had swelled, and his shoulder blade felt like a chiropractor had moved it four inches up. He stayed out in the warm night and ate beans from a tin plate, scooping them onto a thick strip of bacon, and watched Ahn-Kha make a new pack for Bee out of a legless kitchen chair the Golden One had traded for somewhere.

"Everyone wants to see you," Zak said, coming out of the darkness. "Dispatcher himself asked for you."

"I'm tired, reiner."

"Just for a moment. You're Bulletproof now. You've got to have a sip."

"A sip?"

"It's where we get our name. What did you think it meant, Kevlar? We've got some char-barrel-aged Kentucky bourbon."

Valentine scraped off his plate into the legworm-feed bucket.

EVERY BITE ADDS AN INCH was written on the side. "You should have opened with that, Zak. I'd have been up there already."

Inside the barn, a wood-staved cask big enough to bathe in stood upon two sawhorses near the band, each of whom had a sizeable tumbler tucked under their chair as they scraped and strummed and plucked away. Tikka, in a fringed version of her brother's leathers, gave him a welcoming hug that allowed Valentine a whiff of leather-trapped feminine musk, then took Zak's hand and pulled him away. The Dispatcher poured drinks into everything from soup bowls to elegant crystal snifters, with the help of Cookie at the tap.

Valentine entered to applause and whoops. He kept forgetting he was supposed to hate these people. Perhaps they'd bred the legworms that destroyed Foxtrot Company at Little Timber Hill. But they'd carved out a life, apparently free of the Reapers. He had to give them credit for that.

"Our man of the night," the Dispatcher said, his nose even more prominent thanks to its reddish tinge. "How do the victory garlands feel?"

"They're turning purple," Valentine said, accepting a proffered thick-bottomed glass from Cookie. A quarter cup of amber liquor rolled around the bottom.

"Some Bulletproof will take the edge off."

"Just a splash, please, sir. I-don't hold my liquor well."

"It's that cheap radiator busthead you flatties brew in the Midwest, is why," Cookie said. "Bulletproof s got aroma and character."

"It blows your damn head off," Tikka said. "That's why we called it 'bulletproof in the first place."

"Enjoy," the Dispatcher said, raising his own glass and bringing it halfway to Valentine.

"Bad luck not to finish your first taste," someone called from the audience.

Valentine touched his glass to the Dispatcher's, and several in the crowd applauded.

The liquor bit, no question, but it brought an instantaneous warmth along for the ride. Cheering filled the barn.

"He's Bulletproof now," the Dispatcher called to the crowd, noticing Valentine's wince. "Bring out his leathers!"

A parade of Bulletproof wives and daughters came forward, each holding a piece of leather or armor-a jacket with shoulder pads sewn in, pants, boots, gloves, a gun belt, something that looked like spurs . . .

Valentine stood a little dumbly as they piled the gear on his shoulders and around his feet. It was a dull gunmetal color, and made him think of a knight-errant.

"Zak," the Dispatcher called. "Where'd he get to? Zak!"

"Right here," Zak called, coming in from the gaping doorway to the barn, Tikka in tow, both looking a little disheveled.

"Zak, show David here how to wear his leathers."

Valentine, Zak, and Tikka picked up pieces of his new outfit and went outside. He'd seen breastplates like the one they strapped on before. They were an old army composite, hot as hell, made you feel like a turtle, but they could stop shrapnel. "You got ol' Snelling's rig," Zak observed. "He was a good reiner, if a bit flash for the Bulletproof. Dropped stone dead of a heart attack one hot summer day while climbing his mount. You never know."

"No, you don't," Valentine agreed, glad this Snelling hadn't been felled by a sniper working for the Cause.

"Zak says you're a flattie?" Tikka asked. She had a siren's voice, and her melodious accent begged a man to sit down and stay a while.

"Iowa," Valentine said. "But I left when I was young. I spent a lot of time in the Gulf."

"That where you picked up those scars?"

"Pretty much. What's this on the sleeve?" A series of hooks, reminding Valentine a little of sharpened alligator teeth, ran down the outside seam of the forearm of the jacket.

"Serrates," Tikka said. "They're for digging in when you mount, or hanging on to the side."

Zak showed him how to fix the spurs, which were a little more like the climbing spikes utility linemen wore to reach their wires. They could be flipped up and locked flush to the inner side of the boot. Locked down, they projected out and down from his ankle.

"Some guys put them on their boot points. I think that looks queer," Zak said.

Valentine explored the padding in the jacket shoulders and elbows. Military Kevlar plates were buttoned into the back and double-breasted front. The pants had stiff plastic caps on the knees and shins.

"You can take the bulletproofing out, but we generally wear it. Can be a lifesaver."

Valentine felt a bit like a porcupine. His old Cat claws would fit right in on this outfit. He could wear them openly and they'd just look like another set of spikes.

"How do you two kiss without harpooning each other?" Valentine asked.

A smile split Tikka's tan face and her eyes caught the firelight. "That's just part of the fun."

"Don't make fun of the leathers," Zak said. "A lot of effort goes into each one."

"Fine stitching," Valentine said. He wondered about the hides, though; they were thicker and pebblier than cowhide.

"I don't mean that. That's legworm egg-casing, stretched and dried. Getting it is trickier than threading a full-grown legworm for reins. You have to go into a breeding pile and get the egg right after it hatches, because it rots fast if you don't get it scraped out and dried. You have to help the little bugger inside out of it, or he'll eat almost the whole thing, and if you hurt a legworm grub doing that the adults stomp everything in sight."

"It's kind of a rite of passage for our youths," Tikka said. "They have to go into the winter dogpiles and check on the eggs. When they come out with a hide, they're considered full-grown members of the tribe."

"Thank you for skipping that step with me," Valentine said. "I'll wear it with pride."

"But be careful, Dave. There are lots in town that look down on riders. You'll get called a hillbilly and a Grogfucker and worse. Some think riding herd on a legworm's the same as cleaning up after a gaunt."

"He looks too fine for that kind of talk, Zak," Tikka said.

"How do you do the foxtails in your hair?" Valentine asked.

"Easy," Tikka said. "There's a cut-down pinecone attached to the tie. Some braid their hair around it. I can show you. Now that you've got a few worms, you should look the part."

"Zak, I want to talk to you about that. I'm passing through. Hoffman Price brought us up here in the hope that we'd get a guide to the Ohio River, up around Ironton or Portsmouth. I'll swap you my share of the recovered beasts for a ride."

Zak shook his head. "I've got a bigger string a little to the west. I'm leaving early tomorrow to get back to them."

"Then I'll drive you," Tikka said. "That way I'll get my string back."

"He's already got a girl, Tikka," Zak said. "You'll have to excuse my sister, Dave, she's man-crazy."

"Any girl who doesn't want a husband by twenty and babies after is man-crazy, in my brother's opinion," Tikka said. "Zak, you know you're the only one for me."

"'Only one' when I'm around, that is. And that's just 'cause I keep saying no to a train."

She tried to stomp him with her heavy riding boot but Zak danced out of the way. "You're a fresh piece of wormtrail, Zachary Stark."

"What in the hell are you wearing, David Black?" Alessa Duvalier asked from the darkness. She wore her long coat, black side turned out, and carried her walking stick.

"And that's the girl, Tikka," Zak said, grabbing for her long hair. She dodged out of the way and got behind Valentine.

"Apparently I'm Bulletproof now," Valentine said, striking a Napoleonic pose. "What do you think?" Tikka played with his hair.

"I'm tempted to get your pistol and test you. Starving, is there any food left?"

Valentine smelled blood on her. "Sure. I'll show you. Excuse us."

"Let's hurry. Starved."

Valentine led her up to the food tables, and she cut open a loaf and filled it with barbecue. They went back to their camp in the empty field. Ahn-Kha and Bee were wrapped up in a fireside game that involved piling buttons on a rounded rock.

"Price is walking his mule," Ahn-Kha said. "Did they offer us transport, my David?"

"Oh, he's got a ride. Count on him," Duvalier said.

"What have you been up to?" Valentine asked.

"I didn't miss your performance this morning. I just watched it from the Wildcat side. I was checking out these camps. There's some bad blood between these, um, tribes."

"You've made it worse?" Valentine asked.

"Of course. We might want to shift a little more to the west. When it got dark I offed a couple of the Wildcats and left a note warning them not to use Grogs in any future contests. They were already stirred up because someone got shot when they captured those Bulletproofs. When they see what I did to the bodies it ought to put them over the edge. A lot of their riders were upset that they let it go with just a contest. This should put them right over the edge."

Ahn-Kha sent a cascade of buttons down the side of the rock and bowed to Bee. He got up and went over to the wrapping for his oversized gun.

Valentine rose and looked across to the ridge with the Wildcat campfires. Had some of them gone out? He should have counted. Captain Le Havre would have taken a piece out of his ass for that kind of sloppiness. He picked up his U-gun.

"Wait here," Valentine said. "If shooting starts, let's meet at the creek we crossed just before we turned in here."

"Val, what are you doing?" Duvalier said.

"I'm going to warn them."

"Why? The Bulletproof will probably win; there're more of them. It'll get a good war started between these assholes."

"There are kids all over the place."

"Nits make lice, Val," Duvalier said.

"Is that who you really are?" Valentine asked.

"Whose side are you on, Ghost?" she called after him. "I know the answer: your ego's."

Valentine hurried up to the barn, the new leather pants creaking as he trotted. His ankle hurt, but seconds might count.

"Yes, you look fine in your leathers, Bulletproof," a woman called from the door of the barn. The party was still in full cry, and Zak and Tikka were stomping the concrete with bootheel and toe in syncopation, another quarrel forgotten. Valentine ignored his greeter and went straight for the Dispatcher.

The crowd parted, alarmed at the U-gun. Valentine carefully carried it pointed down, his hand well away from the trigger area. Zak stepped in at his rifle arm. "Dave, there's no need-"

"Watch that weapon, David," the Dispatcher said. "What's going on? Pants too tight and you're looking for the tailor?"

A few laughed.

"Dispatcher," Valentine said. "Our Grogs were down looking at the contest field. They went off to some bushes to-you know-"

"And?" the Dispatcher asked.

"They saw the Wildcats. Some of them on their worms, armed, others gathering."

"Coming this way?" the Dispatcher asked.

"The Grogs just ran back. Armed riders is all I know."

The Dispatcher upended his glass of bourbon onto the concrete. "Carpenter, get to the herd riders, have them try to lead the wild worms west. Mother Shaw, take the children out to the cover-field. Everyone else who can shoulder a gun, get to the rein-worms. Lead riders Mandvi, French, Cherniawsky and McGee, with me. David, you and your people with Zak; Zak, get them clear."

"You might see some fancy riding after all," Tikka said.

The crowd dissolved, and the musicians cased their instruments, if not sober at least sobered.

Zak brought Valentine to his legworm at the road trough. Other riders were climbing on board, bawling orders to the teenage boys watching the mounts-

-when a rocket cut across the sky, leaving a sparking trail. It exploded overhead with a BOOM that rattled Valentine's bones.

The legworm reared but Zak settled it.

Zak extended a hand, but Valentine found that with the hooks and spikes in his costume, climbing the side of the legworm was possible without assistance, as long as another shell didn't fire.

"What the hell was that?" Valentine asked, the boom still echoing in his ears.

"A big firework, sorta. Scares the worms. They're trying to make the mounts bolt."

Valentine saw one worm humping as it headed down the road, a rider raising dust as he was dragged. The others had their mounts under control, more or less, and turned them toward the barn.

Another rocket exploded, but it only served to hurry the legworms in the direction they were already going. Zak reached their campsite.

"Get on!" Valentine called. "We've got to ride out of here. Where's Price?"

"I don't know," Ahn-Kha said. "Still off with his mule." Valentine helped the others up.

Bee looked alarmed, and refused to mount. She let out a shriek into the night. Ahn-Kha barked something at her and reached out, but she slapped his hand away and ran off toward the road.

"I'll drop you off with the kids in the cover-field," Zak said. "You'll be safe there."

"Take us to the fight," Valentine said.

"The Dispatcher-"

"The Dispatcher's going to need every gun," Valentine said. "We've got three. Right?" He looked over his shoulder at Duvalier and Ahn-Kha.

Anh-Kha nodded. He had his cannon and Price's Kalashnikov. Duvalier patted her shotgun. "I'm happy to plant a few bobcats."

"Wildcats," Zak said.

"Then let's get online."

Valentine looked down at his U-gun. The only ammunition he had for it was Everready's 5.56mm. He wished he had a real sniper load. He looked at Duvalier's shotgun. The Mossberg would be useless in anything but a close-quarters fight. "Ali, take Price's rifle."

"Be sparing," Ahn-Kha said. "There is only one magazine."

"Where's the rest?"

"In boxes." Ahn-Kha rummaged around in the battle satchel that contained spare bullets and gear for his gun, and handed him the box.

Cookie and Gibson joined them and the legworm slid quickly down the hill to where the other riders were gathering. Cookie had his ear to a headset, coming from a handcrank-charged portable radio.

Another rocket exploded over the massive barn. Yellow-white sparks ran down the tin roof.

"They're good with the fuses over there. Probably been cutting them all day. So you're a brother rider now," Gibson added to Valentine.

"Seems like," Valentine said. Zak lined up his legworm behind another. Just behind them, in the center of the column of legworms, the Dispatcher waved a flashlight. The column turned and the legworms went single-file up toward the barn.

"If we go to battle line you, the girl, and the Grog can cling to the cargo netting," Zak said. "Keep your heads down."

Valentine learned what battle line was as soon as they crested the hill and turned their line north. Another sky-cracking explosion over the barn sent a legworm humping over from the other side of the hill, its riders hanging on for their lives. The line of battle-ready legworms twitched, but stayed in station front to back.

"They're coming. Flank facing offside," Cookie called, listening to his headset.

Zak and his team slid off the top of their worm, as did riders all along the battle line, digging their hooks, goads, and spikes into the thick patches of dead flesh. Women and teenage boys with rifles, hooks looped around their chests and attached to their ankles, joined the fighting line, adding their guns.

The column moved in the direction the fleeing legworm had just abandoned. Valentine readied himself for what would be on the reverse slope of the hill when they topped it.

Cookie slapped his thigh, headset to his ear. "Zak, we got 'em. They're in the field, not halfway across, in open order."

Cheers and foxhunting hallos broke out all across the Dispatcher's line of legworms as the news spread.

Zak's mount crested the hill and came down the other side, turning slightly as it followed the worm directly ahead.

Twenty or more legworms crept-or so it looked in the distance- in three columns across the contest field toward the Bulletproof camp.

Valentine took comfort in the thick length of legworm between him and the Wildcats. It was like shooting from a moveable wall. He thought of stories he'd read of fighting warships, their lines of cannons presented to each other. In naval terminology, the Bulletproofs were "crossing the T" against the oncoming Wildcats.

The Dispatcher's legworm followed theirs, and the one behind his let loose with a whooshing sound.

"The pipe organ's firing!" Gibson yelled. "Yeeeah!"

Streams of sparks cut down the hillside and exploded in the earth among the columns. The Wildcat legworms began to turn and get into line to present their own bank of rifles to the Bulletproofs, but the mounts kept trying to get away from the explosions.

Machine guns from the front Wildcat legworms probed their line, red tracers reaching for the riders. Another Wildcat firework burst above and Valentine felt the legworm jump, but it had overshot.

The Bulletproof column accelerated. Zak employed his sharpened hook to urge the legworm along and close the gap that opened between his mount and the one ahead. Zak still had his rifle slung; his job was to keep his beast in line, not fight.

Now the two masses of legworms, the Bulletproofs tightly in line and moving quickly, the Wildcats' in an arrowhead-shaped mob, converged.

Ahn-Kha sighted and fired. "Damn," he said, loading another shell. He shot again. "Got him."

A legworm in the Wildcats turned and others writhed to follow or to avoid its new course. Ahn-Kha picked off another driver.

"That's some kind of shooting," Cookie said. Ahn-Kha ignored him, fired again, swore.

The front end of the Bulletproof column began to fire. It had run ahead of the Wildcats; the marksmen got an angle on the exposed riders clinging to the right sides of their mounts.

The Wildcat column dissolved into chaos. Each legworm turned and hurried back toward their camp as fast as the hundreds and hundreds of legs could carry their riders.

Cheers broke out all across the Bulletproof line.

"That's how you win a scrap!" Gibson said. "Tight riding. Damn if Mandvi can't point a column."

"It's because we were ready for them," Zak said, nodding to Valentine.

"Cease fire," Cookie shouted, radio headset still to his ear- though no one but Ahn-Kha was shooting. The Wildcats retreated in disorder.

Valentine hadn't used a single bullet.

More rounds of Bulletproof were being issued as riders danced jigs. Other legworms, still with armed riders, circled the barn at a distance, though the scouts had claimed that the Wildcats were decamping and heading for higher ground to the east.

"Zak, I take it you're willing to give our friends a ride north, now," the Dispatcher said. "And if you aren't, I'll make it an order."

"Of course I'm willing. I'm willing to dig a hole to hell if that's where they want me to drive my worm."

"Your sister can go watch your string," the Dispatcher said.

"Wormcast." Tikka kicked a stone.

Duvalier hung on Valentine's arm, but it was play; she felt stiff as a mannequin. "Better luck next time."

"What's your destination over the Ohio?"

"We're trying to find an old relative," Valentine said. "She's come up in the world, and we're going to see if she'll set us up."

"Take Three-Finger Charlie, Zak," the Dispatcher said. "He's got connections with the smugglers. Tell him to trade egg hides if he has to, I want these folks set up so they can pass through the Ohio Ordnance in style."

Hoffman Price led his mule into the circle of revelers. "I was scavenging for mule shoes. He found a mess of wild carrots, and they were fat and sweet so I pulled up a bushel."

"You missed-" Zak began.

"I know. I saw it from a couple miles away. You Bulletproofs throw one hell of a party. Fireworks and everything."

Price looked at the bourbon-sloppy smiles all around. "What? Don't y'all like carrots?"