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Then he was through the smoke. A wide, bright green mortar tube sat, a bloody, bearded man fallen against the arms of the bipod, looking like a dead roach in the arms of a praying mantis. Just beyond, a severed head lay next to what had been its body.
A brief flurry of gunfire turned to cries and screams as the Bears did what they did best: close quarters fighting. Only it was closer to murder.
The Bear with the cuts on his nose was perhaps the most impressive of all. He grapevined through the position with only his .45 gripped carefully like a teacup, his body following the foresight like it was a scouting dog. Valentine saw him drop three Moondaggers spraying bullets from assault rifles held at their hips in the time it would take Valentine to clap his hands.
Valentine saw Moondaggers fall, blown left and right by shotgun blasts or gunfire. The men on the other side of the slope saw the slaughter and ran from their positions and into the thickest timber they could find while their officers fired guns in the air, trying to stem the panic.
By the time Valentine realized the top of the hill and the mortar postions were theirs, the Bears were already over the hill and chasing what was left of the Moondagger infantry and mortar crew down the gentler reverse slope. Gamecock recalled his team and sent them to the right to check out the rest of the hilltop. The Bear with the old M14 knelt against a moss-sided rock, squeezing off shots as he squinted through the scope.
A bullet came back and he sank down, reloading. He rolled to his right, fired three times, and then rolled back behind the rock. No shots came back this time.
Some bit of sanity recalled him to duty. Valentine posted Preville by the mortars and followed a path north, finding himself atop a lime-stone cliff with a good view of the river valley and the treetops they'd advanced under. He withdrew into cover and fired first the red flare and then the blue, but as the first went off he saw work was already started on the bridge.
Rand had put the engineers to work as soon as he heard firing from the bluff top, figuring the mortar crews would have better things to do with Bears roaring up through the woods.
Valentine hurried back up to Preville and reestablished contact with headquaters. They connected him with Moytana, who reported the destruction of two armored cars. He'd delayed the center column, forcing them to come off the road and deploy, before retiring and leaving a screen of scouts who were giving enemy position reports as they fell back. The center column wouldn't reach the bridge for hours yet.
The long day would be over soon.
Valentine looked around at the dead being arranged by a couple of Bears in a neat row under the trees, their faces covered and arms and legs placed tightly together. Most of them had jet black hair and copper skin. Valentine recognized again the old game he'd seen so many other places-Santo Domingo, Jamaica, New Orleans, Chicago: elevate an ethnic minority to a position of authority, where their posi-tion and status depended on the continued rule of the Kurians above. More often than not, the more-visible middlemen took the blame for the misdeeds of those at the top.
Valentine counted heads. All the Bears were upright, including the four keeping watch to the south and west.
"Not even any wounds? Your command's not even scratched, it seems."
"Not exactly unscratched, Major," Gamecock said. "You left something behind, sir. Left ear. Lobe's gone."
Valentine reached up, grabbed air where the bottom of his ear should be.
"You could take up painting French countrysides cafes," a better-read Bear laughed.
"Doberman can fix up your ears so they match," Silvertip said, pointing to the Bear with the docked ears.
"Want me to go look for it, sir?" Preville asked, perhaps desperate to get away from the combat-hyped Bears.
"You, with the iodine. Spare a little."
"Absolutely, Major," the bear said, exhibiting what was perhaps the deepest voice Valentine had ever heard in Southern Command.
"What's your name?"
"Redbone," the Bear said.
"Thanks, Redbone. Good shooting with that pistol. You don't give lessons, do you?"
"I can make time."
* * * *
Valentine could turn the hill over to the Guard infantry now. With a few platoons posted on the bluff and some more companies spread out in those woods, the flanking column could bust itself to pieces in this manner, and every moment his forces on the west side of the river would grow stronger as men, vehicles, and legworms crossed, platoon by platoon.
With the brigade across and flanks well secured by river and lime-stone cut, the men could afford to relax and swap tales of skirmishes against Moondagger scouts. The Moondagger columns, discovering that Javelin had escaped the bridge choke point, skulked off for the sidelines like footballers who'd just given up a fumble.
The Wolves were coming in with reports that they'd turned tail.
"A mob. That's all they are," someone ventured.
"Like most bullies, they're toughest against people who can't fight back," Valentine said.
