"Gonzo, Harper, get out your blades. There's something we have to do."

"Cut the horses' throats?" Harper asked.

Valentine decided there was still a chance at bluff. "No, we have to whittle."

Five minutes later, but with over an hour of daylight left, Valentine stepped out of the door with the three rifles in his arms. He inflated his lungs, threw out his chest, and let loose with a high-pitched shriek. The three Black Feathers startled at the cry, which didn't seem to echo off the hills so much as pa.s.s through them.

"Come and get your guns," Valentine called hoa.r.s.ely, advancing a cautious pair of steps away from the door. His holster was empty; Harper covered him from behind with the revolver.

"You made the smart move, son," Mr. Mind said, trying to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. The three rode forward to claim the repeaters.

Valentine carefully placed them on the ground and stepped back.

The older man dismounted, covered by the guns of his younger relations. He knelt to pick up one of the guns. "So, there are only three of you. I thought so. These are mighty fine-"

He made a surprised choking sound and pulled his hands away from the rifle as if it were a rattlesnake shaking its tail.

Carved into the stock of each rifle was a small insigne, a reversed swastika identical to the one Valentine had seen on the canoe and discussed with the researcher at the Miskatonic.

He looked up at Valentine, lips trembling. "Where'd you get these?" he asked.

"Our Masters gave them to us. Their mark is on the saddles, as well. I even have a tattoo.

We're scouting for them, you see. Eight of them moving west as we speak. So take them, but we'll have them back by morning. In good condition, too: They'll only be dropped once."

"Now, son, we had no knowing you had anything to do with the Twisted Cross. h.e.l.l, we're no enemies of yours. You might say we're on your side. Just this spring we caught a Cat out of the Ozarks. Real little spitfire; the boys ganged her, and we cut her throat, of course. You can ask Lord Melok-iz-Kur, in Rockford. We pay for what we take there with good silver, turned in runners even."

Valentine smiled. "It seems we've just had a misunderstanding here. No one was hurt, no one need know, Mr.-"

"It's Black Craig Lorraine, sir. At your service. If there's anything we can do to help you along, anything at all..." The Black Feather was almost groveling.

"Come to think of it..." Valentine mused. Valentine returned to the house, holding the rifles. "He folded." Harper handed the pistol back.

"Eh?" said Gonzalez.

"They're letting us go. In fact, they're giving us some supplies. Problem is, they're cannibals, so I had to promise them Gonzalez, since he's the plumpest of us."

"Bad joke, Val," Gonzalez said. "That was a joke, right?"

That night the Wolves rode north with guns, horses, and a new shoe on the spare horse.

They were also weighed down by bags of corn, grain, and food from the supplies of the Black Feathers.

"Jesus, Lieutenant," Harper said, voice tinged with admiration. "When you did that Reaper scream, I about c.r.a.pped my pants. You could have warned us."

One of the Black Feathers, part of the dispersing ring to the north, waved in a friendly fashion. Gonzalez eyed him warily.

"That was a joke, right, Lieutenant?"

Nine

Milwaukee, August of the forty-third year of the Kurian Order: The burned-out corpse of a city that once held nearly two million people rots across some eighty square miles on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Michigan. From the steep hills overlooking the great lake in the east to the Menominee and Root Rivers in the west, the city is nothing but hollow sh.e.l.ls of buildings, the upper stories now housing bats, hawks, pigeons, and seagulls. The lower levels shelter everything from rats and coyotes to vagrant humans. Green has covered pavement throughout much of the city. Crickets chirp and gra.s.shoppers leap along Locust Avenue, and Greenfield Avenue is precisely that: a green field where cattle are moved along to graze.

The new center of the city is the railway station, where the more favored soldiers and technicians house themselves in a ring around the Grand Avenue Mall. A hobo jungle of casual labor lives around and under the spaghetti-strand warren of overpa.s.ses that make up the old Interstate 94/43 juncture. Two Kurian Lords run the city, one from the Grog-guarded 1950 bomb shelter under the Federal Building, and the other from Tory Hill on the grounds of Marquette University. The Miller Brewing Company is still in business, producing but a trickle of the pilsner torrent it once did. Under new management, of course.

Lake Michigan awed Valentine with its quiet majesty. It had nothing of the crashing drama of the ocean sh.o.r.eline he knew from books. The expanse of water covering 180 degrees of the horizon in almost a north-south line impressed him nonetheless.

He and Randall Harper camped together north of White-fish Bay. They had left Gonzalez in a secluded barn far outside the city limits with the horses after a cautious but uneventful crossing of southern Wisconsin. The only difficulty had been from a pack of guard dogs at a lonely farming settlement who chased them out of a field where they were stealing corn for the horses. The dogs contented themselves with barking rather than biting, and the Wolves had hurried back to their mounts without injury to anything but their dignity.

Now each night they stood behind a four-foot-tall, decorative stone wall in an overgrown park overlooking the lake, waiting for a boat from the White Banner Fleet to show three lights, one flickering, which they would answer with two.

"What exactly is this Flotilla?" Valentine asked his companion.

Harper, comfortably seated with his back to the stone wall, took a puff of one of the noxious cigarettes he smoked. "They're sympathetic to the Cause, even if they don't fight the Kurians tooth and nail. They're smugglers, gunrunners, traders. When they fight the Quislings, it's more because somebody got double-crossed, or they asked for too big a payoff. The Hoods hate going out into blue water, I'm told, so they leave it to the Quislings and some amphibian Grogs. Naturally the Quislings take bribes whenever they can get away with it. But the Flotilla always fights the Grogs whenever they get the chance. It's a real blood feud. I guess these Grogs are more partial to human flesh than most."

"Oh, I think I've heard of these. Big Mouths, Snappers, or whatever. They have jaws that open right to left, instead of up and down, right? Kind of fish-frog things?"

"Yep, slimy skin, like an eel. They're a problem in summer. They go dormant in winter. The real danger's in the spring, when they lay their eggs, you gotta keep away from the sh.o.r.es of the places they inhabit. They forage miles inland for food. They like the water a little shallower though, so they're not such a problem here. Up by Green Bay it's another story, though. And Lake Erie is stiff with them, they tell me."

Valentine thought of all the times that he had taken a boat out into the lakes of the Boundary Waters, collecting fish for dinner. Strange to think of fish emerging and hunting ash.o.r.e. "So why does the Fleet carry our mail for us?"

"The Hunters in upstate New York give them guns and ammo, that's why. Rope, lumber, paint, turpentine, engines, gasoline-all sorts of stuff. We're lucky. We're just delivery boys; we don't have to worry about payoffs. But I got a little grease for the wheels in my bag; it's sort of expected."

Valentine shrugged. "Whatever it takes. You'd think they'd be on our side."

"They are, they are. In fact, I guarantee that you'll like 'em. Those sailors got a million stories. Of course, most of it's lies and brag, but it's still fun to listen to."

"I'll bet," Valentine said.

The next night the boat arrived. Valentine almost missed it, having wolf-trotted back to Gonzalez's barn to check on things at the main camp. Both the horses and his scout looked better for a few days' rest. Gonzalez had explored the area, finding some apple trees and rhubarb growing nearby. The scout had collected a basket of green apples and an armful of rhubarb, and was sharing his findings with the horses. "I saw some tomatoes near there, too. I'll get 'em tomorrow, sir," he reported.

"Just make sure you're not raiding somebody's field. We might end up dealing with something worse than dogs. I don't want any locals to suspect we're here."

"No tracks, no sign, and best of all, no Reapers," Gonzalez rea.s.sured him.

"I hope not. Sleep light. I'll take some apples back, if you have no objections, Mr. Bountiful,"

Valentine said, filling his pockets.

"Of course, Lieutenant. Give a few to the sarge with my compliments."

It was a tired lieutenant who returned to the overlook that evening, having covered fifteen miles on foot in the course of the day. Two hours after sunset, the three lights appeared on the dark lake."Thar she blows," Harper quoted, choosing a curious allusion. Valentine was mentally reciting two on the land and three in the sea, and I on the outskirts of Milwaukee will be.

Harper poured his flammable liquid on two piles of wood, twelve feet apart on the lakeside of the overlook wall, and set them ablaze. One light on the boat began winking on and off, as somebody opened and closed a hooded lantern.

"Are you satisfied it's them?" Harper asked.

"Yes," answered Valentine, trying to make out the lines of the little ship.

"Then let's go down to the beach, sir, and deliver the mail," Harper said, kicking out his fires.

The ship bobbed in the small swell of the lake. The waters of Lake Michigan did not roar as they struck the sh.o.r.eline, but instead gently slapped it. The lake almost seemed playful on this idyllic summer evening, and something about the cool water in the warm evening breeze made Valentine forget the dangers of the night. The men waded out, weighed down with their waterproofed message bags, moccasins tied around their necks.

A tiny dinghy met them, its sides a bare sixteen inches out of the water.

"Climb in sideways," a boy's voice said from the stern. "You'll capsize me if you try to vault in."

The Wolves threw their packs into the d.i.n.k and rolled into the little boat. It settled in the water appreciably with their added weight.

Valentine looked into the stern, at the figure with the paddle. What he had thought was a young boy was in fact a young woman dressed in shapeless white canvas. She had a round face and merry eyes, looking at her pa.s.sengers over freckled cheekbones.

"Nice night, eh, boys? Captain Doss sends her compliments to the representatives of the Ozark Free Territory and invites you aboard the yawl White Lightning," she said, flashing an impressive set of teeth.

"The what White Lightning?" Valentine asked.

"Yawl," she repeated. "You know nothing of ships, soldier?"

"Not much," Valentine admitted.

"It's a little thing, but seaworthy as a porpoise. A ship not very different from ours made it around the world with only a single man on board. Over a hundred years ago, that was."

"Good to see you again... Teri, is it?" Harper said, contemplating his soaked deerskin breeches.

"I thought you looked familiar. Aaron... no, Randall Harper. Met you twice before, I recall.

But I didn't see you this spring."

"I had the overland route. I don't want it again," Harper explained.

"Well, the captain will be glad to see you. So who's this with you?"

"Lt. David Valentine. He hails from Minnesota." She reached over to shake Valentine's hand. "Pleased to know you, Lieutenant. Teri Silvertongue, first mate of the White Lightning. Will it be possible for you gentlemen to be joining us as guests this lovely evening?"

"I can't think of anything I'd like more, Miss Silver-tongue," Valentine said, imitating her courteous phraseology. He wondered if Silvertongue was a nickname.

"We go by Mr. in the flotilla, man or woman," Silvertongue corrected. "Just as you do in the Wolves. Will you take an oar, sir?"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Silvertongue. Sergeant Harper here didn't tell me the ship had a female crew, let alone how you expected to be addressed. Likes to keep a good thing to himself, I guess," Valentine explained, shooting a glance at Harper. He paddled for the white blob outside the gentle surf.

"Oh, there's plenty of men in the Flotilla," Silvertongue explained. "The commodore of our fleet just has a soft spot in her heart for any woman with a sad tale. It's the only soft spot she has; the woman has steel in her backbone and flint in her heart in all other matters excepting her 'poor foundlings," as she calls us. But yes, it's three women on the Lightning.

But it beats life on land. The Capos just want us for breeding stock, and their gunbelt lackeys seem to think they have the right to get the job started on any girl who tickles their fancy."

"Capos?" Valentine asked.

"That's what we call the Reapers out east, handsome boy."

The dinghy reached the ship, and Valentine got a good look at the White Lightning. Her lines had kind of an off-balanced beauty, with an oversize central mast set well forward and a smaller, secondary mast projecting from far astern.

Captain Doss wore a smart white semi-uniform to greet her guests. The captain had beautiful, dusky skin and the angular features of a storybook pirate queen. Her short black hair matched even Valentine's own mane in its glossy sheen.

A third woman, who helped Valentine and Harper into the White Lightning, stood over six feet tall and had the long, graceful limbs of a ballerina. "Give me the bags up," she said perfunctorily, and Valentine realized he had heard a foreign accent for the first time in his life.

Once on board, the White Lightning seemed smaller than it had looked from the dinghy. It was wide-waisted; the top of what was obviously the cabin area filled the middle third of the ship. It had a wheel to steer it-someone had spent a lot of hours carving and polishing the spokes-placed in front of the rear mast. All the woodwork, save the planks of the deck and the decorative wheel, was painted a uniform light gray.

The captain introduced her crew. "You've met my first mate, Mr. Silvertongue. My second mate, who works so hard I don't need any more crew, is Eva Stepanicz. She crossed the Atlantic four round trips before ending up in the Lakes."

"It will be more times, once I have goods enough for my own ship," she said.

"You mean gold enough?" Harper asked.

"No, sir. Goods. In Riga is agent of tradings, who pays most for paintings brought back from America. I anf here collecting arts."

The captain smiled. "It's hard not to indulge someone so determined. And she's a hard bargainer. I don't know a Pica.s.so from an espresso, but I think our Mr. Stepanicz has enough to start a gallery."

"But I'm forgetting my manners," Harper said, reaching into his haversack. "Captain, compliments of my last trip through Tennessee," he said, handing over a pair of elabo- rately wrapped and sealed bottles of liquor. In the muted light, Valentine couldn't read the black labels, but they looked authentic.

"Sergeant Harper, you just bought us a new coat of paint, and maybe some standing rigging.

My thanks to you, sir."

Harper pointed to the three bags of correspondence. "You'll also find a box of cigars for each of you in those bags. If you don't smoke them yourselves, a little good tobacco helps grease the Quisling wheels, I believe."

"You southern gentlemen are too kind. I wish those Green Mountain Boys would show the same courtesy," Silvertongue said, with a curtsey involving her overbaggy trousers.

"Enough playacting," Captain Doss interrupted. "I'd like to be anch.o.r.ed off Adolph's Bunker by midnight. You Wolves want to pay a call on Milwaukee? Get a little taste of life in the KZ?"

"We're always interested in the Kurian Zone. But would that be wise, Captain?" Valentine asked.

"Well, Lieutenant, the pathfinder look would have to go. But we've got some extra whites in the slop chest. The Bunker's a rough spot, but I've never heard of the Reapers going in there. The owner never makes trouble; in fact, I've heard he turns troublemakers over to them. I'd like a little extra muscle showing for the deal we need to do. I'll make it worth your while."

Valentine thought for a moment. "Is this deal anything the New Order would object to?"

"If they knew about it, Lieutenant," Doss said, looking at the wind telltale. The tiny streamer fluttered east. "You might say we're f.u.c.king with the Quislings."

"Count us in, then."

An hour later, the yawl tacked into Milwaukee's harbor. A single decrepit police boat, piloted by a Quisling whose sole badge of rank was a grimy blue shirt, motored alongside and illuminated the White Lightning with a small spotlight.

Captain Doss held up a hand and flashed a series of hand signals that would have done a third-base coach proud. The Quisling nodded, satisfied.