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"Well, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked.
"We can't land in the Ozark Free Territory," Valentine said.
"Odd that they'd be so nervous about it. Chances of more than a few civilians seeing them are slim, there's not much civilian presence near the river in the bootheel country."
"We must still go ahead. My people's dice are cast. They are trapped between enemies."
The Grog Express: The Gray Baron's rail line describes the chord of his defensive arc running from the Mississippi River to the Missouri south of Omaha.
It is an unusual railroad, in that it connects no cities, Kurian Zones, or resources. Much of it did not exist before 2022; it's purely an invention of military necessity. The Gray Baron wanted a fast way to link his vast operational area and defend it with a comparatively small force. The answer was mobility.
The Iowa Guard believed it couldn't be done-a rail line largely built and worked by Grogs. The Gray Baron, with a few hired engineering guns and a lot of backbreaking labor, proved them wrong. With it, legworms even pull loads, drawing laden flatbeds in the manner of horses hauling barges on a nineteenth-century canal.
The Grog Express runs two kinds of trains. Fast diesel locomotives pull the battle trains, designed to shift artillery from one point to the next with his best-trained Grog and human elites. Slower-moving supply trains shift his companies of fighting Grogs, legworms, and the wounded and injured and supplies for other formations.
The Grog Express is fed through two supporting lines. One runs up into Iowa, the other to the Mississippi River, where it ends near the riverside wharf of a little town called-nowadays-Grog Point.
David Valentine watched the progress in the rail yard with something like satisfaction.
The day promised another thunderstorm. High white mushrooms above, a griddle of blue steel flat as the prairie beneath.
The Baron's Stronghold had a small but functional yard, communicating with his personal line and running back up to Iowa. The first order of business was to send Chieftain and a few Golden Ones a dozen miles up the line and tear up track, to prevent a surprise attack.
Unlike their Gray cousins, who had a Byzantine tribal network, Golden One families organized themselves generationally, making organization of the flight somewhat easier. Postpubescent males and females each formed a "circle" as Ahn-Kha translated it, then newly mateds, then females with the unborn, then families with young unable to survive without their parents help, then families with older offspring, then those who had lost one or the other mate, then senior males and females, and finally the truly elderly who needed the care of a younger generation. Each such "circle" had leaders and adjudicators who found help and settled disputes and spoke for their circle, more or less. The circles called on other circles for help, ancient "links"-such as widows and widowers naturally supervising the unmated youths, pregnant females seeking help from the senior females, unmated youth looking after the elderly ...
Little of it was codified; it seemed to be a tradition with the Golden Ones.
"What happens if a newly pubescent male doesn't feel like making sure one of the toothless elderly's food is properly mashed?" Valentine asked.
Ahn-Kha's ears went back. "Very little, as long as there isn't thievery or brutality of any sort. Just talk. But if such a link breaker should ever need assistance themselves, they may have difficulty finding it outside blood relations."
Graf Stockard had made himself useful as a sort of sergeant major in the confusion. He assembled the Baron's men under guard of a couple of armored cars and Valentine made the usual offers to take volunteers. The others would be locked up, packed into the old forced-labor holds and secure warehouses to be turned over to whichever of the Baron's forces or Iowa Guard reclaimed the camp. Valentine had more than enough to do without a few hundred extra prisoners to take care of. It wasn't quite lawful, but it would have to do.
Somehow, the difficulties of organizing the move sorted themselves out among the Golden One circles. Valentine and his team stayed furiously busy answering questions, often in mime for not one in ten Golden Ones even knew a few words of English. They wanted to know about weapons, about the trains, about canned heat and water purification, about tentage and cordage ...
The scattering of humans and masses of Golden Ones were slowly coming together as a team. Nothing like breaking a good sweat together in the outdoors to start an alliance.
They were such gentle giants, too. They reminded Valentine of horses, very careful of how they placed their feet and shy to the touch. As he explained coupling and uncoupling railcars and the attendant safety chains, a pair of juveniles, easily the size of a smallish man, held a plate of mashed heartroot and a pitcher of instant lemonade, ready to give arificially-flavored-and-sweeetened refreshment.
Whatever last doubts Valentine had buried in the recesses of his mind about the Grogs' ability to adapt to Kentucky were dispelled. The Kentuckians like those in the Gunslinger Clan would welcome such neighbors. Well, probably.
It occurred to Valentine that it would have been a good deal easier to simply relocate the Kentucky Legion to Northern Missouri than move the Golden One population to the more hospitable Kentucky soil. But the idea of abandoning Evansville and the Army of Kentucky ...
He wondered if the same doubts had plagued his father at the birth of the Ozark Free Territory.
They were able to organize two trains, plus a small third flatbed worked by powerful Grog muscles like a giant handcart. The first was full of warriors and had the fastest engine. Valentine and Ahn-Kha briefly considered attaching the armored battle cars and filling them with warriors, but the weight would slow the train. They elected to have it look more like a fast-moving troop train, with the warriors crammed into boxcars and a single armored caboose bristling with machine guns. A twin 40mm cannon on a crated-and-sandbagged flatbed was pushed by the engine.
Only one of the Baron's patrols came in during the process, and they were taken prisoner by armed Golden Ones before they comprehended the changes to the fortress. Thanks to the Warmoon Festival, there had been only a few patrols out. Every Gray One wanted to take his part in the rites to enhance his chances in the coming season.
Ahn-Kha thought it best if the experienced Golden One fighters stayed with their people and the "Express" was stuffed with Gray One warriors. The Golden Ones would be at ease with their families and the familiar command structure of their elders around.
The Golden Ones' commander-in-chief was a meaty, shrapnelscarred veteran named Wu-Dkho-no human could say his name on the first try. Valentine thought of him as "Napoleon." He was a little shorter than most of the Golden Ones, and he wore a heavy, pocket-lined coat with his chin tucked into his chest in a manner that made Valentine think of a painting he'd seen of Napoleon retreating from Moscow. Ahn-Kha explained that his stance was a little intimidating to most Golden Ones-to them that body language was more Gray One than Golden, indicating an angry bull-Grog ready to head-butt.
Valentine made contact with Cottonmouth and told them Buffalo would be on the move. He hoped to cover the forty air miles with his advanced elements overnight, and have the rest of the Golden Ones to Muddy Landing in three days.
"Muddy Landing," Captain Coalfield's voice crackled back. Valentine couldn't tell if there was relief in his voice. "Seventy-two hours."
"From dusk tonight," Valentine said.
