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"Patel. Hoboken."
They trotted over, Patel solemn at the tone in his voice.
"Hood," Valentine said, using Southern Command slang for a Reaper.
They took the news like experienced Wolves. Concern but not panic. Hoboken put his hand on the big parang at his waist.
It was back along the road away, somewhere at the top of the river-bank. It might just be watching, waiting for someone to trot off into the bushes to take a crap. Sure, it could wade into them and do a lot of damage, but how many dead pawns would make the Kurian controlling it think the sacrifice worth the loss of his knight?
But who knew what might be rushing to its aid.
Valentine and the Wolves slipped off into the brush, spread out by a few meters, preventing the Reaper from taking two at once if it decided to fall on them.
"Lifesign down," Valentine said.
Reapers hunted by seeking the emotional signal given off by intelligent minds. The Hunters had spent a good deal of time in mental training, learning to meditate their lifesign down until it was like background radiation.
Problem was, it was hard to forget that you were on the wrong bank of the river, with your friends about to leave, and a walking death machine lurking, probably as fast and strong as all three of you put together. At night Reapers were at the height of their lifesign-sensing powers.
He hoped this one was concentrating on the throng at the riverbank.
Valentine quietly removed the stiletto from his forearm. If it grabbed him, he might get it through the eye or ear or jaw as it snapped his spine or tore into him with its foot-plus long, flanged tongue.
Purely a matter of chance which man it would target, but Valentine took the middle. A smart Reaper might strike there, hoping that the others at either wing would shoot at each other in the confusion.
They took turns walking, one going forward while the other two covered, the men behind giving soft clicks of the tongue when the first man could no longer be covered.
Something was wrong-the location. . . . Valentine cast about like a dog in a swirling breeze. No, it was to the side, too high.
He froze, gave a signal for the others to keep still as well.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph-
It was up a tree, resting on a flatish branch above a deadfall that gave it a good view of the river and landing. But the silhouette was all wrong-the pelvis and lower limbs were turned around, like a bird's. The limbs were thin. Valentine had seen starvation cases that looked fat compared to this Reaper's limbs. Leathery wings like a bat's extended from overlarge arms and oversized fingers, now flaccid and hanging like a child playing superhero with a sheet pinned to his back and clutched at the fists.
A backswept forehead had a little plume of stiff hair to it, like a centurion's helmet.
Valentine must have startled, misstepped. The long, backswept face turned and cocked, just like a robin listening for a worm.
The eyes, the color of a dying sun, were cold and familiar.
Valentine shouldered the 18 Select and it launched itself off the branch with a spring of its rear limbs. A short, forked tail had more webbing leading to the legs. The thing could maneuver like a duck. It turned and Valentine loosed a burst.
It disappeared into the trees. Valentine got a glimse of elongated ostrich toes as it disappeared. He hardened his ears and heard branches snapping.
"What the blue hell was that?" Patel asked, coming forward at a crouch. He scanned the branches above, as if fearing nests filled with little chirping Reapers.
"I don't want to wait to find out. Back to the landing."
Valentine's head wanted to disappear between his shoulders, turtlelike, the whole way back. It was far too easy to imagine the avian Reaper-if it was a Reaper-reaching down and knocking his head off with one of those slender legs like a perched cat swatting at a ball of string.
The men had fun stripping and destroying the trucks. They'd even used a tree limb to winch out one of the diesels. Patel made some flat-bread on a greasy skillet while the strike platoon rested and let Rand's team do their jobs filling the boats. Valentine rode back on the ricketiest-looking raft, leaning against stacks of tires and boxes filled with headlights and radio gear as he watched the old houseboat's pontoons and netted masses of Ping-Pong balls scrape and roll through the water.
He could hear firing from downriver, a kak-kak-kash of small cannon that reminded him of the old Thunderbolt's Oerlikon. He watched signal flares fired from the friendly shore, and a boat roared by with the last of the Wolf rear guard.
The sky was already pinkening.
Some of his men gathered at the far end of the boat, watching the hostile shore recede. As Valentine watched the southern half of the mighty river in the direction of the firing, he listened on a member his strike platoon and a member of the landing detail talking to a rafter as they were towed back across the Mississippi:
