Page 143 of Choice of the Cat (Vampire Earth 2)
One of the scouts sent back word during supper that a convoy of vehicles had been spotted west on the old Highway 2. The Trooper-marked column wasn't making good time-weather and actions of the Trekkers had reduced the road to little more than a bad path-but they were clearly heading for the Eagle camp. The Twisted Cross were intent on smashing the largest brand in the Dunes, probably sometime after nightfall.
A few voices suggested that they pull up stakes and move at dusk, leaving nothing but empty space for them to attack, but Hendricks vetoed the idea with the weight of the Common Defense behind her. Valentine explained that with the Reaper's ability to read lifesign, the mass of moving wagons would shine like a lighthouse across a calm sea, and they would be able to cover whatever miles the wagons put between them and the camp that same night. They were better off fighting it out from behind trench and wall.
As the sun set, a mist began to steal across the valley beneath the great rolling hill.
"That's strange for this time of year, especially in the evening," Mrs. Hendricks said, watching the veil thicken around the camp.
"It's the Kurians. They can shape the clouds when they have a mind," Duvalier said. She'd lingered through the day, saying she wanted to rest her legs and her horse. "Val, I'll ride now. You still staying?"
Her tone was nonchalant, but he read concern in her eyes. "Yes."
There wasn't a fight this time.
The pair went to their packs in the guest wagon. Duvalier stripped down to a utility vest, perhaps some old angler's jacket or photographer's rig at some time, now dyed. She now loaded it with everything from her claws to screw-topped pipes filled with chemicals designed to burn or blow up. She began to apply black greasepaint across her face and arms as Valentine sharpened her sword. The straight, angle-pointed blade had a dull coating everywhere save the very edge, where it glinted with cold reflections.
"I'm going to be outside the camp before the sun goes down," she said. "I plan to stick to them like a tick. You live through this, you can catch up to me south of Omaha, where I got that pheasant. Remember? Just head east till you hit the Missouri."
"I'm not leaving these people until things are decided one way or the other," Valentine said.
"Neither am I. This column means there's a headquarters for it. I'm going to find those Troopers and see what I can see. Could you help me with this greasepaint?"
Valentine coated her shoulders and the back of her arms with the ebony grease, leaving the occasional strip of sun-darkened flesh exposed to break up the human pattern. She looked like a black-and-tan tiger. Her torso finished, Duvalier slipped into baggy black pants with enormous cargo pockets on the thighs and her trusty old hiking boots. She tucked her red hair under a dark, insignia-less kepi. It was the standard-issue hat of Southern Command dyed black.
"Technically I'm in uniform, not that it makes a difference if they catch me. If I learn anything useful, I'll try to leave you a message somewhere outside the Twisted Cross camp. Look for a pile of four of anything sticking up, rocks, sticks, whatever. I'll leave a note under it."
"Be careful."
"You, too. Don't get your head blown off, Ghost." "Don't get caught lighting any fires, Smoke." She took a step toward him, and evidently thought better of it-instead she opened the door. She touched the side of her hand to her eyebrow and then dragged her index finger down her grease-painted nose, and left.
Fog and night closed in on the camp; the lantern lights glowed like amber gems, each surrounded by a tiny halo. Valentine stepped out of the guest house-wagon. He wore his old Wolf buckskins instead of his traveling coat, now like Duvalier's night gear darkened to a chocolate color. The heavy vest weighted his shoulders. His parang and revolver still hung from the sweat-darkened leather-and-canvas equipment belt he could not bring himself to let go. But now it had additional gear added: the old curved sword hung across his back, and the two spare drums for the submachine gun were clipped above each buttock where once canteens had ridden. His fighting claws, worn more for luck than because he expected to use them, hung around his neck from a breakaway leather shoelace like Eveready's old necklace of Reaper teeth.
Even with the seventy-one-round drum in it, the submachine gun had a nice balance. He sat down on the tiny steps to the wagon, broke down the gun, cleaned and oiled it, and put it back together again. He flicked the little switch in front of the trigger from full automatic to semi-auto, and back again, listening to the inner workings of the gun. He put the drum back on and chambered the first round.
He looked at the stock, and looked again, before he recognized what he saw. Someone had marred Tank Bourne's carefully stained and lacquered finish and carved a little heart in the stock, no bigger than the nail on his pinkie. A valentine? It must have been Ali, in one of her sentimental fits. He wondered if she kissed it after she had etched the icon. Of course he knew many soldiers with strange little rituals they practice to bring fortune. One of his Wolves used to chew a terrible gum made of pine sap before action, as though as long as his jaws worked, he knew he was still alive.
Valentine tried to relax, but his body refused to cooperate. He rose, deciding to walk the perimeter as darkness fell.
The inner ring of wagons had been drawn into a tighter circle, trek tows lashed under the wagon in front of it, with the little house-wagons parked in the gaps. The remaining women and children were huddled in a quiet mass around the main campfire. Jocelyn Hendricks read by firelight from some children's books, reciting the well-known tales of Pooh and Piglet. Piglet was voicing his worry over meeting something called a Heffalump when she looked up and met Valentine's eyes.
"Rin, read the rest of this, would you?" she asked a boy, handing him the book before getting an answer. She stepped lightly between the children in her pointed-toe boots and joined Valentine.
"These are the kids whose parents won't let them go. They figure if anything's going to happen, they want it to happen to everyone. Is it as bad as that?"
Somewhere on the walls a sentry started up a tune with a Native American flute. He or she was skilled; it sounded like two instruments accompanying each other. The woven notes soothed.
"Are the kids okay?"
She shrugged. "The little ones just know something is wrong. The older ones are so busy pretending to be brave, they don't ask questions, but I can tell they're listening. Not to my story or the music-they're trying to listen for the sounds outside the camp."
"And you're pretending to be brave reading, and I'm pretending to be brave walking around with a gun."
"It's not pretending. At least not with you."
Valentine looked down at the young woman, scarecrow-lean in her hand-me-downs. Duvalier was the bravest person he'd ever met, and she voiced her fears. Why couldn't he admit to them, as well?
"I'm scared all the time. Scared of dying, scared of doing something stupid that causes others to die. Scared that no matter what I do-" Valentine stopped, not wanting sink into nervous garrulity. Especially not in front of this young woman he had just met.
"No matter what you do? What's that mean?"
