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A copper fall day greeted him as he followed the marking stones and path logs serving as steps to the north side of the former park, where the emplaced guns squatted in a quarrylike dugouts area tearing up the ground around a trio of chicken-track-like communicating trenches linking the guns to their magazines.
Duvalier fell out of the procession as Valentine descended into the dimple in the natural terrain that served for the artillery positions.
Valentine saw Southern Command's artillerymen lounging around the fire control dugout.
Brage clearly wasn't the expert here; he stood apart while one of his hatchet men went over the guns.
"Good morning, Sergeant Bragg," Valentine said.
"That joke never gets old, does it?" Brage said. "What kind of getup is that?"
"New model Kentucky uniform."
Brage ignored him and looked over the guns. The three big howitzers were Moondagger heavy artillery that had been captured at what was now being called the Battle of Evansville Landing. The old Moondagger iconography had been filled in and modified with black marker to make a winking happy face-the dagger made a great knowing eyebrow.
Someone with fairy-tale tastes had named the big guns by painting the barrels: Morganna, Igraine, and Guinevere. None of the knights were present. Perhaps Arthur had led them off searching for the Holy Grail.
The squinty hatchet man artillery expert tut-tutted as he inspected the guns.
"Can't use these howitzers," decided the sergeant, whose name tag read McClorin. He gave Igraine a contemptuous pat. "Half the lug nuts are missing. Tires are in terrible shape. You'd swear someone had been at them with a knife. Can't have the wheels falling off. What are we going to do: drag them home, put furrows in this beautiful Kentucky grass? The state of these guns . . . You should be ashamed of yourself, Major-beg your pardon, sir. Those soldiers of yours playing cards all day?"
The grinning gunners looked abashed.
Valentine's oversized satchel pulled hard on his shoulder. Naturally enough, it was full of lug nuts and sights. They didn't clink, though. He had taken care to wrap them in pages torn out from the New Universal Church Guidon.
"Thank you, Sergeant McClorin. Thank you very much," Valentine said. "I will remember your name."
"Big-caliber guns are more trouble than they're worth. Need special trucks to haul them and a logistics train a mile deep thanks to those shells. Our factories would do better to crank out more sixty mortars instead of trying to hit these tolerances. A good reliable sixty's what you need to hit-and-run in the field, or an eighty-one if you're looking to make life miserable for the redlegs in some Kurian post.
"Besides, it never fails: We just set them up to cover the highway coming down out of Memphis and the Kurians get word, and next thing you know harpies as Hoods are coming out of the night like mosquitoes. No, sir. Fixed fortification guns are plain stupid."
Brage made a note on his clipboard. "Think you've put one over on us, Major? Southern Command needs shells just as much as it needs tubes."
You petty, petty bastard, Valentine thought. Good thing he hadn't brought Chieftain or one of the other Bears along. Brage would be tied into a decorative bow right about now.
Valentine pointed to Bee, who was digging for fat, winter-sluggish worms in the wet soil at the top of the wood steps leading down to the ready magazine.
"We keep the magazine under lock and key. All that work with concrete and reinforcing rods-we don't want it wasted with carelessness. She's in charge of the key. Hate to think where she hides it."
"I can see the stories about you are true, Major," Brage said. "You'd start a pissing match with a camel."
Duvalier was suddenly in the gun pit. She'd swung in on one of the barrels like a gymnast and landed so lightly nobody noticed her.
The master sergeant reached for his pistol.
"Keep that weapon in its holster, Sergeant Bragg!" Valentine growled.
Brage lifted the gun anyway and Valentine slipped in and grabbed his wrist, getting his body between Brage and the butt of the gun. The master sergeant was stronger than he looked and put a leg behind Valentine, but as Valentine went down he twisted, getting his hip under Brage's waist so the two touched earth together, still fighting for the gun. Valentine somehow kept the barrel pointed at dirt.
Another hatchet man drew his gun. And watched it fall to the dirt, his nerveless hand dropping beside him, twitching not from muscle action but from blood emptying from the severed wrist. Duvalier's sword continued its graceful wheel as she pinned the next sergeant with the point of her knotty walking stick. She brought the sword up, edge crossing the wooden scabbard with Brage trapped between as though his neck were lard ready to be worked into biscuit batter.
Sergeant McClorin put his back to the gun he'd condemned, aghast.
"This is-" another hatchet man said.
The gun crews were on their feet.
"Shut up, Dell," the man with his neck scissored between Duvalier's scabbard and razor-edged sword blade said.
