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"Form your Bears into two-man hunter-killer groups. Give them explosives-a couple of sticks of dynamite will do. Have them keep to cover until a legworm comes near. Try to get the bang under the things. They're sensitive there."
"I've heard that. The middle, right?"
"The nerve ganglia's there. But if they can't get near enough to be precise, just under the thing will do. They'll reverse themselves."
Valentine braced the camp for impact. He relocated headquarters to the old graveyard behind the church, where there was a good wall and tree cover.
Artillery shells began to fall, hitting the motor and camp stores and the camp's former headquarters with deadly accuracy.
Of course the Coonskins wouldn't turn on their own-they'd coordinated it with the Moondaggers. Someone in the Coonskins had giving the Moondagger spotters a nice little map of camp. Valentine wondered how the brand rank and file felt about the switch in alle-giance. Sure, the leadership might decide to bet on the winning team, but what threats would have to be used on the men to turn their guns against erstwhile comrades?
Valentine climbed to the church steeple, so narrow it used a lad-der instead of stairs. Bats had taken up residence in the bottom half, hawks higher up.
He felt a little like the proverbial candlestick maker trying to wedge into a shower stall with the butcher and baker. Bloom and her communications tech had a tight enough squeeze in the tiny cupola.
"Valentine, if a shell hits here now, it'll be a triple grave."
"Had to take a quick glimpse," Valentine said.
Bloom slapped him hard on the shoulder. "Moondagger troops are advancing behind the legworm screen."
Valentine watched the lines of crisscrossing legworms. The Kentuckians fought their worms differently than the Grogs of Missouri, who hurried to close from behind shields. He'd seen a Kentucky leg-worm battle before. The riflemen and gunners hooked themselves to one side of their worms and protected the beasts with old mattresses and sacks full of chopped-up tires on the other. Legworms were notoriously resistant to bullets, but machine-gun fire had been known to travel right through a worm and hit the man on the other side.
A new wrinkle had been added this time-classical siege warfare. The legworms zigzagged forward, acting like the old gabions and fas-cines that sheltered approaching troops and guns.
Valentine could see companies of Moondaggers behind the worms, following the mobile walls as they moved down the night-blue slope toward the camp.
Muzzle flashes sparked on the worms' backs. The legworm riders were shooting, sure enough, but the fire wasn't what Valentine would call intense. More like casual target practice.
"Put some air-fused shells on the other side of those worms," Bloom said. "Slow those troops."
"South line wants permission to fire," the communications tech said.
"No," Valentine said. "Hold fire. Hold fire. Wait for the Moondag-gers, sir. There's no artillery on our defensive line, sir. If the riders have spotted it, they're not telling the Moondaggers," Valentine said. "I think a lot of those riders are just play-shooting."
"If that's how you want to play it," Bloom said. "Don't fire till we see the whites of their eyes, eh?"
"They're almost on top of the Bear teams," the communications tech reported.
"And here comes the Alliance," Valentine said, looking north. The Bulletproof worms looked like fingers wearing thick green rings thanks to the tenting banding them.
"Pass the word not to shoot at legworms with the bands. They're Alliance," Bloom said.
The communications officer complied.
"Go to the south wall, there, Valentine. Get a hit on 'em," Bloom said.
"Yes, sir."
"Where are those mortars?" Bloom barked.
Valentine hurried back down the patched-up ladder. He went forward, Bee gamboling like an excited dog. He checked his gun and magazines.
Mortar shells whistled overhead. Valentine hurried toward the flashes.
Bee ooked at a sentry and Valentine identified himself to the nervous chain of command to the forward posts. Rifle fire crackled overhead.
"They're on top of us. Are we pulling back, or what?" an under-standably nervous captain asked.
