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He trotted back to the head of the worm and tapped Tikka on her spiked boot.
"Still think you can get it up?"
Tikka winked. "I'm five and oh, Blackie. Wanna be six?"
"This isn't the time-"
She laughed. "I don't quit that easy. If I get you all up so you can cork those guns, you going to finally give me a taste?"
Just get it over with. "A three-course dinner."
"With dessert," she added.
"I think that's included in the price."
"Sir, how am I supposed to go red when an episode of Noonside Passions is running at the other end of the fuckin' worm?" a Bear named Chieftain asked Gamecock.
They started up the hill, sidewinding on the long worm. Tikka found some kind of path, probably an old bike or hiking trail. The worm tilted.
A shot rang out.
"You all better side-ride-it's going to get nasty here," Tikka called.
"Can you keep the worm upright?" Valentine asked.
"Do ticks tip a hound dog? Grab netting."
The Bears slipped down the side of the worm facing downslope. Valentine heard bullets thwack into the worm, and Tikka shifted her riding stance, clinging on to the saddle and fleshy worm hide like a spider on a wall. Somehow she managed to work the reins and goad.
The mortars fired again, blindly, sending their shells down to explode at the base of the hill.
Valentine heard shouts from above, cries in a strange warbling language.
"Drop off now. They'll keep shooting at the worm," Valentine told Gamecock, seeing a cluster of rocks trapping fallen branches and logs.
The Bears scrambled for cover. Preville pulled out his field radio.
"Whenever you're ready, Lieutenant," Valentine said.
Gamecock took out a little torch and heated his knife. "Uh, sir, if I'm not mistaken, you're the brigade commander now. I don't think it's your place to be at the forefront of a hill assault.
Let me and the Bears-"
"There's a good view from that bluff. The Moondaggers are on their way, and I need to assess the situation."
"Red up, red up," Gamecock cried.
Each of Gamecock's Bears seemed to have their own method of bringing the hurt, and with it the willed transformation into fighting madness that made the Bears the killing machines they were. One punched a rock, another stamped his feet, others cut themselves in the forearm or ear or back of the neck. A Bear, perhaps more infection-minded than most, made a tiny cut across his nose and dabbed iodine from a bottle on it.
Valentine heard fire following the worm.
"Time to fuck them up," the one with the iodine rasped, wincing.
Gamecock pressed the hot knife under his armpit, clamped down on it hard.
Preville looked around, gaping. Valentine knew what his com tech was thinking: If this is what they do to themselves, what the hell's in store for the enemy?
If Valentine wanted pain, all he had to do was think of his mother, on the kitchen floor, the smell of stewing tomatoes, what was left of his sister lying broken against the fireplace . . .
