Demontech: Gulf Run (10 page)

“If we find them, do we fight, Sir Haft?” Sergeant Phard, the Bloody Swords squad leader, asked.

“If we have to.” Haft thought for a moment, then added, “If they’re coming this way and we have time, we’re better off going back to get our people out of their way.” He heard the clopping of hooves and looked past the Bloody Axes.

“Where are we going?” Xundoe asked, panting, as he trotted up, leading a mule with two spell chests strapped to its back.

“Who sent for you?”

The mage drew himself up. “No one,” he replied indignantly. “But when I saw you running off with the Bloody Axes like that, I thought there was trouble. I can help.” He swept a hand at the spell boxes.

Haft nodded sharply. “I hope there isn’t any trouble, but if there is, I’m glad you’re here.”

Xundoe preened.

“Just keep your mule quiet.” Haft turned and led the way deeper into the forest.

Xundoe glared at Haft’s back. As if he was a total greenhorn who needed to be told to keep his mule quiet!

They trotted along the track, fast enough to eat up distance, not fast enough to tire them. A mile along they heard the sounds of battle to their left front.

“On line,” Haft said hoarsely, and used hand signals to tell his men exactly what he wanted them to do. He gave the Skraglanders a moment to spread to his sides facing the battle noise, then raised an arm and dropped it forward. They resumed trotting, but in line abreast instead of in a single file. Xundoe followed a few yards behind Haft.

The ground sloped gently down toward the unseen Gulf. The sounds of battle became louder and more widespread as they closed the distance. Haft stopped them when they reached a low rise—it sounded like the battle was right on the other side. He and Sergeant Phard lowered themselves and scrabbled up the rise to peer over its top. Haft wanted to back down soon after looking, but made himself stay and examine the scene before him. He knew the brush would hide him from eyes that merely glanced in his direction, but he still wished he had a Lalla Mkouma to make him invisible. It was too late now to check if Xundoe had one in his spell chests.

The land here was covered with scrub and had been set aside for goat pasturage. Bleating goats scampered about, trying to dodge the three or four troops of Dartmutter soldiers locked in desperate combat with legions of Jokapcul infantry. Well, maybe not legions, Haft amended, but the Dartmutters were certainly badly outnumbered. They were giving good account of themselves; Jokapcul bodies lay piled in front of and around them. But many of the defenders were also down, sprawled atop enemy corpses. What looked like hundreds of goats were scattered about, red with blood, entrails spilled on the ground. A few butted indiscriminately at the men, more easily staggering or knocking over the smaller Jokapcul than the larger Dartmutters. To his right, Haft saw more Jokapcul infantry approaching the battle. An arm of the forest reached almost to the water’s edge on the left. If any Dartmutter soldiers were coming to reinforce their compatriots, they hadn’t yet reached its edge.

After watching for a few minutes, Haft slid back down. Sergeant Phard went with him and waited for orders. Haft briefly described to the others what was happening. The Bloody Axes gripped the hafts of their battle-axes and waited, ready to do anything he said, even if he led them over the rise to their deaths.

“We can’t help them,” he said. “There are simply too many Jokapcul for our number to make a difference. If they stay in the coastal flat, we’re all right. But we still need to find out if anybody is using that track.” He shuddered. He hated to leave those soldiers to their fate, but he knew if they tried to help, all they would accomplish was to increase the number killed by the Jokapcul—and reduce the number of fighters available to defend the thousands of refugees who had given themselves to his and Spinner’s care. “We’re going to follow the track for another mile, then head back.”

The Skraglanders nodded; they understood. Little more than half an hour later they were back at the Eikby-Dartmutt road. The caravan wasn’t there. Neither were the horses they’d left behind.

“Here, Sir Haft,” Farkas said. “They went west.”

Haft trotted to the mouth of the road and saw the wagon tracks and hoofprints that bent out of the road and headed west.

“Then we follow them,” he said. He glanced toward Dartmutt. “But we stay inside the trees.

CHAPTER

SIX

The thousands of people, men, women, children, oldsters, who were camped south of Dartmutt’s walls were slow to realize the city was under attack from the Gulf. At first only those closest to the shore could see the sea battle raging at the harbor’s mouth—and only a few of them happened to be looking in the right direction to see it. None of those who did look immediately realized what the pyrotechnics they saw were; signals perhaps. When they realized the growing flames were ships on fire, they became uneasy. They still didn’t know it was a sea battle, they thought perhaps an accident had befallen a ship or two. Still, some of them began drifting away from the water’s edge, either deeper into the masses of people or north or south into the farmland.

Those who went north or south at first thought they had to evade the patrols that were charging toward them, the patrols put out to protect the farms from the refugees. When the patrols passed by, the north- or southbound refugees became frightened and looked again at the harbor mouth. Now, frightened as they were, they saw a battle where before they had seen what they’d hoped were signals or an accident. Without thinking things through, they began running. Not running anywhere in particular, simply running from where they were. It didn’t occur to any of the runners to wonder how or for how long they could survive without any of the things they left behind.

The refugees who went deeper into the mass of people were simply accepted by those they passed as elements of the constantly moving, milling mass and it caused no undue consternation, though a couple of fights broke out with other refugees whose nerves were already frayed to the breaking point. Being densely surrounded by other nerve-frayed refugees calmed most of those who moved from the unsettling sight at the mouth of the harbor. When troops of cavalry rushing to the defense of the city forced their way through the crowds, well, rough treatment by rude soldiers was just something the refugees had learned to put up with, and most of them failed to realize anything was amiss.

It wasn’t long before the sea battle was over and a hundred coast huggers sped to the piers and quays that lined the harbor before the city’s sea wall and twenty Jokapcul swordsmen jumped from each. Most of the Jokapcul immediately assaulted the Dartmutter soldiers and refugee soldiers who were hastily assembling at the wall’s foot. Two or three hundred Jokapcul raced to the northeast corner of the city walls to intercept reinforcing Dartmutter cavalry coming from that direction. An equal number headed directly to the southeast corner. Finally, the refugees closest to the shore realized what was happening and began a panicked flight. They fled the defenders as much as the attackers.

Arrows rained down on the Jokapcul from the cantilevered battlements above and from the towers at the wall’s corners, while the defenders on the ground were protected by the overhang, but more of the arrows glanced off the Jokapcul armor or stuck in the stiff leather than penetrated to injure. The caldrons of boiling oil that were emptied onto the attackers had more effect. At the north- and southeast corners, the Jokapcul dispatched to intercept reinforcements crowded under the overhang and were mostly protected from boiling oil. However, they weren’t protected from arrow fire from the towers. For a short while it looked like the assault was doomed to failure.

Ten of the coast huggers backed off from the quays and piers; they carried the large demon spitters that had sunk most of the galleys that screened the harbor mouth. The demon spitter crews positioned their weapons so the flanged back ends of the tubes were out over the water then angled the tubes to fire high, pelting the crenellations atop the walls. The merlons were weakened with each strike, until they burst, violently throwing chunks of rock about, injuring or killing the soldiers firing arrows or pouring oil onto the attackers. That gave the eight catapults on the sea wall’s battlements and two to the north and two more to the west the angle they needed to fling rocks at the coast huggers—they sank two of the demon-spitter coast huggers before they were all knocked out. Half of the demon spitters returned their attention to the archers and oil-boilers, while the others blasted the wall just above the heads of the combatants on the ground.

Reinforcing cavalry troops began arriving at the north- and southeast corners, and the intercepting Jokapcul spread out to meet them. The cavalry was joined by some of the refugee soldiers who charged forward on foot. Most of the Jokapcul avoided the charging horses and chopped or thrust their swords at the cavalrymen or disemboweled their mounts. The surviving cavalrymen swung furiously, hewing off limbs and liberating large volumes of blood and gore. The first waves of cavalry were quickly dispatched, but many of the charging horses evaded the enemy weapons and slammed into the Jokapcul, knocking them down like ten pins and trampling them before falling themselves. When the second waves arrived, they faced fewer Jokapcul and killed a larger number before they were themselves killed. The third waves finished off the screening Jokapcul and waited for the fourth waves before they charged into the main force.

Most of the refugees were in panic. Some tried to climb the city walls, but found no purchase on the stone. Many huddled together, crying, seeking safety in mounds of protective bodies. A few hundred jumped into the harbor and attempted to swim to safety. Those who climbed aboard the Jokapcul craft were swiftly killed and thrown back to feed the fish and crabs. Several merchantmen and fishing boats capsized because too many swimmers scrabbled for their decks. But most of the refugees ran aimlessly hither and yon in wide-eyed panic. Few of the runners bothered to pick up more than a few random goods; a very few staggered under so much weight they couldn’t advance faster than a stumbling shamble.

When the victorious army from the goat-field battle swarmed out of the forest, it fell upon the refugees in the farms south of the city. None of them survived, not even the refugee soldiers who tried to fight. Then the Jokapcul headed for the refugees fleeing west.

Spinner and the Prince’s Swords who came with him skidded to a stop just shy of where the southwest road emptied into the farmland. The sound of running footsteps spun him to face the trees on his right and snapped his quarterstaff into position, ready to fight.

“Spinner!”

“Haft!”

Haft broke from the trees and stopped, facing Spinner. Spinner suddenly grinned and stepped forward to embrace his friend.

“Haft, I was afraid we’d lost you!”

“Lost me? Never! Why would you think that?”

“There was a fight beyond the trees. I was afraid you’d come across it and tried to help. But the Dartmutter cause was hopeless.”

Haft pulled back and gave Spinner an odd look. “Yes, that fight was hopeless. We,” he waved at the Bloody Axes with him, “couldn’t help our people if we joined that fight and died. Anyway, we were a reconnaissance patrol, fighting wasn’t our job. We had to find out if anyone was coming our way and bring back a report.” He looked at the Jokapcul ravening the refugees on the farmland. “They missed us and got them.”

Alyline joined them and, after a quick glance at Haft, studied the farmland. “We can’t stay here,” she announced.

They all looked at the slaughter beyond. Then a great gout of dust rose from the city’s seaside wall, and about ten seconds later a growing rumble reached them.

“They’ve breached the wall,” Spinner said softly.

The Jokapcul in the farmland had finished slaughtering the refugees. Now they raced toward the city’s east wall, to pour through the broken wall and take the city. The surviving refugees to the west, and even more survivors to the north, continued to stream away from the city.

“What manner of demon spitter are they using?” Haft murmured. Whatever it was, it was far more powerful than the one he carried.

The two watched for a few moments longer, with the Prince’s Swords arrayed behind Spinner and the Bloody Axes around Haft. They all ignored the Golden Girl’s urgings to leave.

What Spinner and Haft watched differed from the invasion of the freeport of New Bally, where they’d had to escape a city held by the Jokapcul. In New Bally, the Jokapcul had killed all who resisted them, and hanged one out of ten soldiers and seamen of a score of nations to cow the rest. Here, they didn’t have to escape from within Jokapcul lines, but find a way to lead more than two and a half thousand people safely away. However, the Jokapcul in Dartmutt engaged in wanton slaughter of civilians, which they hadn’t in New Bally.

Spinner finally reacted to the insistent tugging on his arm and turned to Alyline. “Yes,” he said absently. “We must leave. Let’s see if Jatke has found a back way out. Or maybe Veduci knows this land and knows a way.”

Jatke showed up a few minutes after they got back to the boulder-strewn area where the refugees were hidden.

“Lord Spinner, Lord Haft!” the chief hunter gleefully called to them. “Look what I found!”

Jatke strode rapidly toward them. Behind him two other hunters hustled along a richly garbed, obviously terrified man.

“Who is he?” both Marines asked.

“He babbled when we caught him, so I couldn’t understand him. But the way he’s dressed, I think he’s some kind of functionary in the earl’s court.”

“Oh?”

Haft cocked his head at the man. “An important man?”

“Look at how he’s dressed.”

“Where’s Plotniko?” Spinner asked.

“I’m here,” the carpenter said, coming up.

“Ask him who he is and what he’s doing out here.”

Plotniko spoke to the frightened man, who indicated with gestures that he didn’t understand, then Plotniko asked again. When the man still didn’t reply, Haft caressed the spike that backed the half-moon blade of his axe and stepped close.